Roomful of Teeth
Fri, February 18th, 2011
9:00 pm
- This event has passed.
The Williams College Department of Music presents Roomful of Teeth on Friday, Feb. 18 at 8 p.m. in Brooks-Rogers Recital Hall on the Williams College campus. This free event is sponsored by the W. Ford Schumann ’50 Performing Arts Endowment is open to the public.
Roomful of Teeth is much more than a vocal group, it is an attitude toward music. The vocal ensemble studies and incorporates non-classical vocal practices, combines them with western styles, and develops new compositions using the fullest possible range of vocal techniques. The eight members of the ensemble – all classically trained – work with master singers and voice coaches from around the world in techniques ranging from Tuvan throat singing to yodeling, from belting and pop singing to Inuit throat singing.
The wide-ranging program will feature rising star Oakland-based musician tUnE-yArDs (Merrill Garbus) in works written exclusively for the ensemble. tUnE-yArDs’ album, Bird-Brains, a self-recorded and self-produced work, utilizes shareware mixing software and a digital voice recorder. Described as “somewhere between Aretha Franklin and Yoko Ono” by the New York Times, Garbus describes her own sound as “a patchwork of sound snippets, of history in a past tense.” It is a composer’s commitment to the preservation of stories, however small and unassuming. Her tour with Dirty Projectors excited audiences and music critics throughout the country.
Composers Caleb Burhans (called a “new music virtuoso” by The New York Times), and William Brittelle (former lead singer of The Blondes, whose latest album was called “expansive, anthemic, all-encompassing, [and] shot through with raw emotion” by eMusic) are also featured and join the ensemble as performers in their own expanded arrangements.
The performance promises to delight listeners with various undiscovered beauties of the human voice. The name of the group, by the way, does not simply describe the look of a group of people in the thrall of joyful song, but also an audience which is, from beginning to end, smiling – ear to ear.