by Timothy Robson
Few new works performed by The Cleveland Orchestra in recent memory have been as musically imaginative and sonically arresting as Caroline Shaw’s Watermark, which received its first Cleveland Orchestra performance at Blossom Music Center on Saturday evening, August 28. Pianist Jonathan Biss, for whom the piece was written, was the superb soloist, with associate conductor Vinay Parameswaran at the podium.
by Mike Telin
When pianist Jonathan Biss pitched the concept for his Beethoven/5 project to the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, he was certain the idea of commissioning five composers to write new concertos, each inspired by one of Beethoven’s, would be seen as too daunting. Much to his surprise, the SPCO ran with the idea. Even more of a surprise was the number of orchestras who signed on to the project as co-commissioners.
In November of 2017 Biss gave The Cleveland Orchestra premiere of Salvatore Sciarrino’s Piano Concerto: Il sogno di Stradella, (Beethoven No. 4). He’ll follow that up on Saturday, August 28 at 7:00 pm at Blossom Music Center with Caroline Shaw’s Watermark (Beethoven No. 3).
“Being with The Cleveland Orchestra is always special for me,” Biss said during a recent telephone conversation. “And given that I played the Sciarrino in Cleveland, I need to talk about how different the two pieces are and how unbelievably different the composers’ approaches to the project were.”
Biss noted that the connection between the Sciarrino and the fourth concerto is so oblique that he had to “go hunting for it.” But with Watermark, Caroline Shaw clearly uses the third concerto as its starting point.
“Caroline said something that I found very interesting. She said that she was trying to ‘write the writing process of Beethoven,’ which I think was her way of saying that she’s imagining how Beethoven might have found his way toward many of the ideas that ended up being central to the third concerto. I think it’s interesting because although I’ve spent my whole life immersed in great music, I don’t think I understand all that much about how the creative process works — how a composer gets from a blank page to a fully realized piece of music. So I find it incredibly fascinating to hear someone like Caroline, whose life’s work is being a composer, engage with the question of how someone else conceives of a piece of music.”
by Hannah Schoepe
How are your compositions formed? How do you balance judgement with unhinged creativity? What is the most profound advice you can offer students today? Those were a few of the questions posed to the Pulitzer prize-winning composer and Roomful of Teeth member Caroline Shaw during an insightful Q & A session Thursday afternoon, February 16 in Oberlin’s Kulas Recital Hall.
During the session Shaw addressed her compositional process, as well as her creative sources of inspiration. She began by playing an excerpt from her recently composed string quartet Valencia. With its simple lines and ethereal harmonics, the piece grabbed the audience’s attention immediately. When asked about the work, Shaw affirmed her love for simple layers in her music. She said, “I like to create a ‘room,’ a musical space where people can walk around but don’t get lost.” Continuing on a humorous note, she said most listeners assume there is a connection between the quartet and Valencia Spain, when in fact the genesis of the work was derived from the beauty of a valencia orange. [Read more…]
by Daniel Hathaway
Brad Wells’ groundbreaking vocal octet, Roomful of Teeth, spent a few days last week on the Oberlin College campus, giving demonstrations, holding master classes, and answering questions before joining Greg Ristow’s Oberlin College Choir in a jaw-dropping, larynx-challenging concert in Finney Chapel. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
“It’s amazing how professional choral singing has changed in the past 10 to 15 years,” Gregory Ristow, director of vocal ensembles at the Oberlin Conservatory, said during a recent conversation. “And the singers in Roomful of Teeth are the perfect model for our students because their careers are multi-faceted.”
On Friday, February 16 at 8:00 pm in Finney Chapel, the Oberlin Artist Recital Series will present Roomful of Teeth under the direction of Brad Wells. The program will include Caroline Shaw’s Partita for 8 Voices, Missy Mazzoli’s Vesper Sparrow, Judd Greenstein’s Run Away, and Toby Twining’s Dumas’ Riposte. The Grammy Award-winning ensemble will be joined by the Oberlin College Choir for William Brittelle’s Psychedelics and Merrill Garbus’ Quizassa. Tickets are available online.
by Mike Telin
Portions of this article are reprinted from an interview in March of 2015 before Roomful of Teeth performed at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
When Brad Wells founded the innovative vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth in 2009, he wanted to explore all the possibilities of the human voice. “Initially, before I studied classical technique, my experience with the voice was pop, rock, and jazz,” Wells said during a recent telephone conversation.
“When I got into choral and solo singing, as well as composing for the voice, on the one hand the Western classical style struck me as very powerful, beautiful, and expressive. But at the same time, I felt that from a composer’s point of view, there were all sorts of colors, gestures, and timbres that were out there still waiting to be harnessed.” [Read more…]
by Timothy Robson
The a cappella vocal group Roomful of Teeth made a big roomful of noise at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium on Friday, March 20 before a large, enthusiastic audience. This remarkable group, founded in 2009, has won a Grammy for their 2012 eponymous first album, and one of the major works on the program, Partita for 8 voices by member Caroline Shaw, won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for music. [Read more…]
by Mike Telin
“I love working with Estelí and Colin because they are that wonderful combination of brilliant musicianship and enthusiastic personality,” says Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw. They are both musicians that I admire and respect so much. And we all just get along!”
On Saturday, February 22 beginning at 7:30 pm in Plymouth Church, the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society presents soprano Estelí Gomez and classical guitarist Colin Davin.The program, “Ancient Melodies, Modern Echoes” includes music by Dowland, Britten and Caroline Shaw. The concert is part of the CCGS’s International Series.
The story of how the three came to be friends and collaborators is fitting for a television movie and begins well before Caroline Shaw won the 2013 Pulitzer. And before Shaw and Gomez became Grammy winners as members of the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth.
“Caroline and I worked together with a composer who writes Rap cantatas. It’s kind of a modern meets baroque meets hip-hop mash-up,” recalls Davin. “We did the business card trade, and I went to her website and started listening to some of her music.”
Shaw and Gomez first met while doing their undergraduate studies at Yale, “at the time she was doing her violin degree,” Gomez said, “then we met again as members of Roomful of Teeth.” And it was after a Roomful of Teeth performance at Lincoln Center that Shaw introduced Gomez and Davin to each other. [Read more…]