Partita for 8 Voices by Caroline Shaw has been awarded the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music! The 26-minute four-movement work composed between 2009-2012 was recorded by the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth for New Amsterdam (released on October 30, 2012). The prize is for a “distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the United States” during the previous calendar year and comes with a cash award of ten thousand dollars. The jury described Shaw’s composition as “a highly polished and inventive a cappella work uniquely embracing speech, whispers, sighs, murmurs, wordless melodies and novel vocal effects.’

Read more at NPR!

7pm and 9pm on Friday, March 15
at Spectrum
121 Ludlow St.
New York

more info

We’re looking forward to performing at the Atlas, in Washington, DC — next March (2013). Check out their exciting new series of contemporary music!

More info about the event at Atlas Arts.

We’re excited to be a part of a cool new project with the New School — an open, and open-minded, community of people who love singing or want to start! Roomful of Teeth will be leading a session (workshop and performance, with lots of group singing and participation) on March 13. Come by and make some sounds with us!

Register for the event here.

The Mannes Extension Division invites you to join us for an event to celebrate and engage in communal singing, New School style. Roomful of Teeth, a vocal octet dedicated to re-imagining singing in the 21st century, will perform, speak, and teach the audience vocal music that will span styles ranging from brand-new classical compositions, yodeling, throat singing, and beyond, including music by Caroline Shaw, Judd Greenstein, Merrill Garbus (tUnEyArDs) and more. Part concert, part discussion, part chorus rehearsal, this event will leave you wanting to sing more in our community, and ready to explore music from around the globe. This event is open to all New School students, faculty and staff. No formal singing experience is necessary to participate.

Questions? Need more info?
Contact us at mannesextension@newschool.edu

Date and Time:
Wednesday, March 13th
6:30-8:30p.m.

Location:
Jazz and Contemporary Music Performance Space, Arnhold Hall, 55 West 13th Street, 5th floor

Admission:
Open to all New School students, faculty, and staff
Register at tnschoruskickoff.eventbrite.com.

Eliot Stone received BA and MA degrees from The University of Texas, at Austin where he trained as an Ethnomusicologist and Slavicist.  He conducted ethnographic fieldwork over a five-year period both in the United States and in Russia, collaborating with Tuvan throat singers.  In particular, his research explores the ways in which Tuvan throat singing and associated historical narratives help to construct a post-Soviet identity for contemporary Tuvans.  

Though Eliot’s interests focus heavily on the socio-political functions of Tuvan throat singing, he is also a highly trained practitioner of Tuvan throat singing having mastered many styles and techniques comprising the vocal art. Eliot currently lives in Texas and continues to collaborate with Tuvan musicians and academics, promoting Tuvan culture on an international stage. 

Tenores de Aterúe came together in 2004, when singers Doug Paisley (boche) and Carl Linich (contra) discovered a mutual fascination with Sardinian cantu a tenore singing. The idea of learning Sardinian songs remained a fantasy until 2008, when Carl discovered videos of Tenores di Bitti performing with each voice part sung in isolation, and then together with the other parts. Armed with this knowledge, they found two other singing friends who were already versed in throat-singing styles; Avery Book (bassu) and Gideon Crevoshay (mesu boche). Shortly after their first recordings appeared online, native Sardinians responded enthusiastically, forging partnerships for the group’s continued exploration of the art of cantu a tenore.

Listen to John Schaefer’s recent episode of New Sounds, which looks at new takes on baroque dance forms, including Caroline’s suite of pieces for Roomful of Teeth (Allemande, Sarabande, Courante & Passacaglia).

Or listen right here:

And subscribe to the WNYC New Sounds podcast!

Thanks to Sarah LaDuke and WAMC  Northeast Public Radio in Albany for having us over for a chat in August when we were up in North Adams. Listen to the broadcast of The Roundtable:

WAMC Roomful of Teeth interview with Brad Wells, Caroline Shaw, and Cameron Beauchamp

Recently deemed “one of the more consistently inventive, surprising composers now working in New York” (New York Times), “Brooklyn’s post-millennial Mozart” (Time Out New York)  and “one of the new wave of scarily smart young composers” (sequenza21.com), Missy Mazzoli’s music has been performed all over the world by the Kronos Quartet, eighth blackbird, the American Composers Orchestra, New York City Opera, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Albany Symphony, the South Carolina Philharmonic, Dublin’s Crash Ensemble, New York City’s NOW Ensemble and many others.  She is currently Composer/Educator in residence with the Albany Symphony, a position funded by the Mellon Foundation, and the Detroit Symphony recently awarded her the 2011 Elaine Lebenbom Award.

2012 will include many exciting new projects, including the February premiere of Missy’s first multimedia chamber opera Song from the Uproar at venerable New York venue The Kitchen.  Excerpts of this new work, based on the life and writings of Swiss explorer Isabelle Eberhardt, were previously performed by New York City Opera as part of their VOX series, and by students at the Bard College Conservatory under the direction of Dawn Upshaw.  As part of Missy’s 2011/2012 residency with the Albany Symphony, the orchestra will premiere a new work in May 2012, and the Detroit Symphony will premiere a new orchestral work in Fall, 2012.  October 2012 will also see the premiere of SALT, Missy’s new multimedia collaboration with cellist Maya Beiser and writer Erin Cressida-Wilson, based on the biblical story of Lot’s wife.  2012 will also include performances by the Britten Sinfonia and Kronos Quartet at London’s Barbican Centre.

Recent projects include new works for eighth blackbird, Kronos Quartet, the League of Composers Orchestra, violinist Jennifer Koh (a new solo work commissioned by the LA Philharmonic), the Santa Fe Chamber Players, violist Nadia Sirota, Ensemble ACJW (commissioned by Carnegie Hall), Present Music (Milwaukee), and scores to accompany films by Alice Guy Blaché, commissioned by the Whitney Museum of Art.

Mazzoli is the recipient of four ASCAP Young Composer Awards, a Fulbright Grant to the Netherlands, the Detroit Symphony’s Elaine Lebenbom Award, and grants from the Jerome Foundation, American Music Center, and the Barlow Endowment.   She is also active as an educator and a mentor to young composers; in 2006 she taught composition in the Music Department of Yale University, and from 2007-2010 was Executive Director of the MATA Festival in New York City, an organization dedicated to promoting the work of young composers.

Mazzoli is an active pianist and keyboardist, and often performs with Victoire, an “all-star, all-female quintet” (Time Out New York) she founded in 2008 dedicated exclusively to her own compositions.  Their debut full-length CD, Cathedral City, was named one of 2010′s best classical albums by Time Out New York, NPR, the New Yorker and the New York Times.  In the past few years they have played in venues all over the world including Radialsystem (Berlin), Millennium Park (Chicago), The Winter Garden (New York, as part of the Bang-on-a-Can New Music Marathon), Overtoom 301 (Amsterdam), The Music Gallery (Toronto) and Le Poisson Rouge (New York, as part of the Wordless Music Series).  In February 2011 they joined The National, Owen Pallett and Efterklang on a tour of the Netherlands as part of the Cross-Linx Festival, and in November 2011 joined My Brightest Diamond (Shara Worden) for performances in Belgium and Paris.  Pitchfork praised Victoire for condensing “moments of focused beauty and quiet conviction from the pandemic distractions of modern life”, WNYC dubbed the group “consuming and arresting”, and NPR’s First Listen asks “Is Victoire’s music post-rock, post-mimimalist or pseudo-post-pre-modernist indie-chamber-electronica? It doesn’t particularly matter. It’s just good music.”

Missy attended the Yale School of Music, the Royal Conservatory of the Hague and Boston University.

Her music is published by G. Schirmer.