Contemporary Classics November 14, 2017 - Contemporary Voice

CarolineShaw: Partita for 8 Voices

Partita for8 Voices is an a cappella composition by the American composer and singerCaroline Shaw. It was composed from 2009 through 2012 for the vocal groupRoomful of Teeth and was released on their Grammy Award-winning debut albumOctober 30, 2012. The piece was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music on April15, 2013, making Shaw at 30 the youngest recipient of the award.  The work, however, was not premiered infull until November 4, 2013, at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York City.  In a review of this performance NYTimes reviewer Anthony Tommasini called it a “an exhilarating, sensual andplayful work” which “range of unconventional sounds . . . from unearthly lowsto falsetto highs, from eerie harmonics to slinky whistles”.  The premiere was not all thatsuccessful according to Tommasini as the Partita was preceded by a large numberof works and so it did not begin until 10:30 and “when the performance of“Partita” began, a noticeable segment of the audience had left.” Roomful ofTeeth will be at the Rialto Theater in Atlanta for a performance on Sunday,January 21, 2018 – 7:00 PM

Caroline Shaw: Partita for 8 Voices performed by a Roomful of Teeth in 4movements:    1,Allemande  2, Sarabande  3, Courante and 4, Passacaglia

The majorityof the rest of tonight’s program will feature the work “Shelter” which by theway features the singing of Caroline Shaw.  This work is composed by “Bang on a Can” founders MichaelGordon, Julia Wolfe and David Lang. Perfomers of this work are MellissaHughes, Martha Cluver, Caroline Shaw, Ensemble Signal & Brad Lubman Gordon,and the album is Lang & Wolfe: Shelter

This work is about what it is like to have a home and to be homeless and is in 7 movements “Before I Enter” and “Is the Wind”, “TheBoy Sleeps”, “American Home”, “Porch”,  “IWant to Live”, and “What We Build”         

Now in its25th year, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus brings together 500 seven-to-21-year-olds throughafter-school choral programs in New York City. The Chorus regularly commissionscomposers to create new works for performance, and Black Mountain Songs is oneresult of that project. A collaboration between The National’s Bryce Dessner,Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry, and contemporary composers like PulitzerPrize-winning Caroline Shaw, Nico Muhly, and Aleksandra Vrebalov, the nearly 75minutes of music on Black Mountain Songs celebrate the utopian vision of NorthCarolina’s non-traditional Black Mountain College, which operated from 1933 to1957 in the rural Appalachian mountains.