Roomful of Teeth

Saturday, April 30, 2016 | 8:00 pm

Baldwin Auditorium

The eight-member GRAMMY-winning a cappella vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth explore the expressive power and range of the human voice in the Vocal Ensemble Series’ closing concert. Formed by Williams College music professor Brad Wells, its members are classically trained singers who draw on techniques and genres as disparate as yodeling and Tuvan throat singing. The ensemble works closely with contemporary composers in creating an ecstatic, entirely commissioned repertoire. NPR declares, “their singing is fiercely beautiful and bravely, utterly exposed.”

Caroline Shaw became the youngest-ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music for her piece Partita for 8 Voices, which she wrote for Roomful of Teeth (of which she is a member). Partita, a four-movement work fashioned after a baroque dance suite and inspired by a Sol LeWitt drawing, shares the program with Wally Gunn’s The Ascendant.

Program