Contemporary Classics November 14, 2017 - Contemporary Voice

Caroline Shaw: Partita for 8 Voices

Partita for 8 Voices is an a cappella composition by the American composer and singer Caroline Shaw. It was composed from 2009 through 2012 for the vocal group Roomful of Teeth and was released on their Grammy Award-winning debut album October 30, 2012. The piece was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music on April 15, 2013, making Shaw at 30 the youngest recipient of the award.  The work, however, was not premiered in full until November 4, 2013, at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York City.  In a review of this performance NY Times reviewer Anthony Tommasini called it a “an exhilarating, sensual and playful work” which “range of unconventional sounds . . . from unearthly lows to falsetto highs, from eerie harmonics to slinky whistles”.  The premiere was not all that successful according to Tommasini as the Partita was preceded by a large number of 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 of Teeth 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 4 movements:    1, Allemande  2, Sarabande  3, Courante and 4, Passacaglia

The majority of the rest of tonight’s program will feature the work “Shelter” which by the way features the singing of Caroline Shaw.  This work is composed by “Bang on a Can” founders Michael Gordon, Julia Wolfe and David Lang. Perfomers of this work are Mellissa Hughes, 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”, "The Boy Sleeps", "American Home", "Porch",  "I Want to Live", and "What We Build"         

Now in its 25th year, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus brings together 500 seven-to-21-year-olds through after-school choral programs in New York City. The Chorus regularly commissions composers to create new works for performance, and Black Mountain Songs is one result of that project. A collaboration between The National’s Bryce Dessner, Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry, and contemporary composers like Pulitzer Prize-winning Caroline Shaw, Nico Muhly, and Aleksandra Vrebalov, the nearly 75 minutes of music on Black Mountain Songs celebrate the utopian vision of North Carolina’s non-traditional Black Mountain College, which operated from 1933 to 1957 in the rural Appalachian mountains.