San Francisco Opera Announces Addition To Upcoming Season, ROOMFUL OF TEETH, 4/23/17

The "remarkable vocal octet" (New York Times) Roomful of Teeth joins SF Opera Lab's Season Two lineup with a performance on Sunday, April 23 at 5 p.m. in the Taube Atrium Theater at the Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera. The Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble makes its San Francisco debut in this SF Opera Lab co-presentation with San Francisco Performances' PIVOT series.

Roomful of Teeth is dedicated to mining the expressive potential of the human voice. Through study with masters from singing traditions the world over, the eight-voice a cappella ensemble continually expands its vocabulary of singing techniques and, through an ongoing commissioning process, forges a new repertoire without borders. The group's imaginative vocalizing has captured the attention of curious listeners as well as critics from all corners of the music world, attracting standing-room-only crowds at recent appearances. "On the L train from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, after an impressive concert by the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth on Saturday evening, I overheard a young woman enthusiastically describe the group as 'like a glee club, but cool in a really nerdy way'" (New York Times).

Roomful of Teeth's April 23, 2017 program will include the Bay Area premiere of composer/ensemble member Caroline Shaw's Pulitzer Prize-winning Partita for 8 Voices, a four-movement highly polished and inventive a cappella work embracing speech, whispers, sighs, murmurs, wordless melodies and novel vocal effects. The piece was created expressly for Roomful of Teeth and is inspired by Sol LeWitt's Wall Drawing 305. Of the premiere of Shaw's Partita, New York magazine wrote: "She has discovered a lode of the rarest commodity in contemporary music: joy."

The remainder of "Shaw & Shakespeare" will feature new works set to Shakespeare texts, all West Coast premieres. They include a new vocal piece by Shaw set to text from The Tempest; British composer Anna Clyne's "Pocket Book VIII" (setting of Sonnet 8) and "Pocket Book LXV" (setting of Sonnet 65); and composer/ensemble member Eric Dudley's "QuietUs" (setting of Sonnet 60 and text from Hamlet), which highlights heavy metal screamo technique and hard rock belting.

SF OPERA LAB: SEASON TWO

Intimate, eclectic, adventurous-SF Opera Lab, San Francisco Opera's new programming arm, celebrates the power of the human voice theatrically in intimate spaces, including the Dianne and Tad Taube Atrium Theater at the Company's new Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera. Season Two explores a rich tapestry of sound worlds that draw thematically on the intersection of personal expression and musical experimentation. In addition to Roomful of Teeth, the season includes:

Ÿ The Source (February 24, 25, 26 & March 1, 2, 3, 2017) - Composer TEd Hearne and librettist Mark Doten's"ambitious, bewildering, stealthily shattering new oratorio" (New York Times) asks how we, as individuals and a nation, confront the information brought to light by Chelsea Manning, the U.S. Army private who disclosed classified military documents to Wikileaks. Through a larger than life four-channel video installation, a chorus of silent witnesses looms. Four singers sing with (at times) electronically-processed voices. Accompanied by a live ensemble of seven instrumentalists, they inhabit an assemblage of Twitter feeds, cable news reports, chat transcripts and classified military video. [Tickets: $35 general admission]

Ÿ La Voix humaine (March 11, 14, 17, 2017) - Francis Poulenc's 1958 one-act monodrama, with a text by Jean Cocteau, presents the private crisis of a woman spurned by her lover via a shared party-line phone. Riveting Italian soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci brings to vivid life one of her most celebrated roles in a program that also includes a set of French art songs. Pianist Donald Sulzen accompanies Ms. Antonacci. [Tickets: $95 general admission]

Ÿ ChamberWORKS­ - Members of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra curate an eclectic and intimate evening of music and song; further details will be announced at a later date.

For SF Opera Lab tickets and more information, visit sfoperalab.com or call (415) 864-3330.

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SF Opera Lab and San Francisco Performances' PIVOT present:

Roomful of Teeth

Sunday, April 23, 2017 at 5 p.m

Taube Atrium Theater

Diane B. Wilsey Center for Opera (Veterans Building, Fourth Floor)
401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102

Approximate running time: 90 minutes long with one intermission

PROGRAM:
Caroline Shaw - Partita for 8 Voices [Bay Area Premiere]

Caroline Shaw - New work set to text from The Tempest [West Coast Premiere]
Anna Clyne - "Pocket Book VIII" (setting of Shakespeare Sonnet 8) [West Coast Premiere]
Anna Clyne - "Pocket Book LXV" (setting of Shakespeare Sonnet 65) [West Coast Premiere]
Eric Dudley - "QuietUs" (setting of Shakespeare Sonnet 60 and text from Hamlet) [West Coast Premiere]

TICKETS: $25 general admission. Tickets are now on sale at sfoperalab.com or by calling the San Francisco Opera Box Office at (415) 864-3330.

The Taube Atrium Theater is equipped with the Meyer Sound Constellation® acoustic system.

Media Sponsor: Classical KDFC

ABOUT ROOMFUL OF TEETH:

Founded in 2009 by Brad Wells, the group gathers annually at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in North Adams, Massachusetts, where they've studied Tuvan throat singing, yodeling, belting, Inuit throat singing, Korean P'ansori, Georgian singing, Sardinian cantu a tenore, Hindustani music and Persian classical singing with some of the world's top performers and teachers. Commissioned composers include Rinde Eckert, Judd Greenstein, Caleb Burhans, Merrill Garbus (of tUnE-yArDs), William Brittelle, Anna Clyne, Fred Hersch, Wally Gunn, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Missy Mazzoli, Michael Harrison, Sam Amidon and TEd Hearne. Projects in 2015-2016 includedThe Colorado, a music-driven documentary film that explores water, land and survival in the Colorado River Basin (featuring former Kronos Quartet cellist Jeffrey Zeigler and Wilco's Glenn Kotche); collaborations with NOW Ensemble, Kanye West and the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME); performances with the Seattle Symphony featuring Luciano Berio's Sinfonia, appearances at new music festivals in the U.S., Mexico and Canada; and partnerships with over a dozen higher education institutions across the country.

roomfulofteeth.org

ABOUT CAROLINE SHAW and Partita for 8 Voices

Caroline Shaw is a New York-based musician. She is a Grammy Award-winning singer in Roomful of Teeth and a violinist in ACME (American Contemporary Music Ensemble), and in 2013 Shaw became the youngest ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music, for her enigmatic composition Partita for 8 Voices. She was the inaugural musician in residence at Dumbarton Oaks (2014-15) and continues her residency with Vancouver's Music on Main through 2016. Recent and current projects include commissions for the Cincinnati Symphony, the Guggenheim Museum Works & Process Series, and the Folger Library, as well as collaborations with Kanye West.
Partita (2009-2011): Composed over three summers from 2009-2011, in collaboration with Roomful of Teeth during their residencies at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), Caroline Shaw's Partita for 8 Voices 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. The score's inscription reads: Partita is a simple piece. 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. carolineshaw.com

ABOUT PIVOT:

PIVOT is a new series created by San Francisco Performances and is now in its second season. The series presents distinctive performances with young artists who are experimenting with new programming ideas, repertoire and ways of interacting with audiences in intimate new art spaces throughout San Francisco. pivot.sfperformances.org

(Photo Credit: Bonica Ayala)