Roomful of Teeth is a Grammy award winning vocal band dedicated to reimagining the expressive potential of the human voice, making NPR’s “The Best Music of 2020: NPR Staff Picks” and “The 100 Best Songs of 2020” lists, and being featured on Bandcamp’s “Best Contemporary Classical Albums of 2020” list.

Their program begins with Caroline Shaw’s Partita for 8 Voices which was composed in collaboration with Roomful of Teeth during their residencies at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA). The work was nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition and received the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music. It is the only Pulitzer awarded to an a cappella vocal work, and Shaw, a singer in the ensemble, is the youngest composer ever to have received the prize. Each movement takes a cue from the traditional baroque suite in initial meter and tone, but the familiar historic framework is soon stretched and broken, through “speech, whispers, sighs, murmurs, wordless melodies and novel vocal effects” (Pulitzer jury citation). Roomful of Teeth’s utterly unique approach to singing and vocal timbre originally helped to inspire and shape the work during its creation, and the ensemble continues to refine and reconsider the colors and small details with every performance.

TICKETS: $40; Students $10; Youth tickets are free with the purchase of an adult ticket!

Program:

Shaw: Partita for 8 Voices

Mazzoli: Vesper Sparrow

Wells: Render

Shin: Bits torn from words

Greenstein: Run Away

Greenstein: Montmarte