Roomful of Teeth
Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s Chamber Series culminates with three concerts featuring Grammy Award-winning vocal octet Roomful of Teeth.
The program includes Roomful of Teeth member Caroline Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Partita for 8 Voices, along with new music by William Brittelle, Judd Greenstein, Brad Wells, Rinde Eckert, and Merrill Garbus.
Brad Wells formed the group in 2009 to re-imagine a cappella vocal music by employing non-traditional and non-Western singing techniques from around the world. This year, the group won a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.
Roomful of Teeth vocalists include Wells, soprano Estelí Gomez, soprano Martha Cluver, alto Caroline Shaw, alto Virginia Warnken, tenor Eric Dudley, baritone Jeff Gavett, baritone Dashon Burton and bass Cameron Beauchamp.
Vocalist, violinist and composer Caroline Shaw was awarded the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music for her Partita for 8 Voices. Partita includes four movements Allemande, Sarabande, Courante and Passacaglia. Shaw describes the piece as “born of a love of surface and structure, of the human voice, of dancing and tired ligaments, of music, and of our basic desire to draw a line from one point to another.”
Roomful of Teeth regularly commissions young composers to create works which go beyond existing music genres and styles. The upcoming performance features William Brittelle’s High Done No Why To, Judd Greenstein’s Montmartre, Rinde Eckert’s Cesca’s View and Merrill Garbus’ Quizassa.
The first performance is scheduled for 8 p.m. March 6 at Mildred and Ernest E. Mayo Hall at The College of New Jersey, 2000 Pennington Road, Ewing. Ticket prices range from $5 to $10.
A free performance is set for 4:30 p.m. March 9 at the Institute for Advanced Study’s Wolfensohn Hall, Einstein Drive, Princeton. For reservations, email name, mailing address and phone number to info@princetonsymphony.org.
Another free performance is set for 1 p.m. March 10 at Monroe Township Public Library, 4 Municipal Plaza, Monroe. Advanced registration is scheduled to begin Feb. 24 at the library’s welcome desk.
More information is online at princetonsymphony.org.
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