Roomful of Teeth is a vocal ensemble founded in 2009 by Brad Wells. Its stated mission is to "mine the expressive potential of the human voice".
''The Times of Trenton'', Ross Amico, March 7, 2014. The ensemble gathers annually at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA), where they have studied

Tuvan throat singing Tuvan throat singing, the main technique of which is known as ''khoomei'' ( tyv, хөөмей, xöömej, mn, хөөмий; ᠬᠦᠭᠡᠮᠡᠢ, khöömii, russian: хоомей, Chinese: 呼麦, pinyin: ''hūmài''), includes a type of overt ...

yodeling Yodeling (also jodeling) is a form of singing which involves repeated and rapid changes of pitch between the low-pitch chest register (or "chest voice") and the high-pitch head register or falsetto. The English word ''yodel'' is derived from the ...

, belting,

Inuit throat singing Inuit throat singing, or ''katajjaq'' ( Inuktitut syllabics: ᑲᑕᔾᔭᖅ), is a distinct type of throat singing uniquely found among the Inuit. It is a form of musical performance, traditionally consisting of two women who sing duets in a ...

, Korean p’ansori, Georgian singing, Sardinian

cantu a tenore The ( sc, su tenòre, su cuncòrdu, su cuntràttu, su cussèrtu, s'agorropamèntu, su cantu a pròa; it, canto a tenore) is a style of polyphonic folk singing characteristic of the island of Sardinia (Italy's second largest island), particularl ...

, Hindustani music, and Persian classical singing with some of the world’s top performers and teachers of the styles. Commissioned composers include

Elena Ruehr Elena Ruehr (born 1963, Ann Arbor) is an American musician, music educator and composer. Life and career Elena Ruehr's parents were a mathematician and an English professor. She grew up in Houghton, Michigan and began piano lessons at age four. Sh ...

Christine Southworth Christine Southworth (b. Boston, Massachusetts, 2 January 1978) is an American composer of postminimal music and works with combinations of Western ensembles, electronics, and world music ensembles including Balinese gamelan and bagpipes. She pe ...

Evan Ziporyn Evan Ziporyn (b. Chicago, Illinois, December 14, 1959) is an American composer of post-minimalist music with a cross-cultural orientation, drawing equally from classical music, avant-garde, various world music traditions, and jazz. Ziporyn h ...

, Rinde Eckert,

Judd Greenstein Judd Greenstein (born 1979) is an American composer of contemporary classical music, and an avid promoter of new music in New York City. He is also a co-director of New Amsterdam Records. Life and career Judd Greenstein was born and raised in Manh ...

, Caleb Burhans,

Merrill Garbus Tune-Yards (stylized as tUnE-yArDs) is the American, Oakland, California–based music project of Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner. Garbus's music draws from an eclectic variety of sources and utilizes elements such as loop pedals, ukulele, voca ...

(of tUnE-yArDs),

William Brittelle William Brittelle (born 1977) is a North Carolina-born, Brooklyn-based composer of genre-fluid electro-acoustic music. Also active as a producer and curator, Brittelle is co-founder/co-artistic director of New Amsterdam Records with composers Sarah ...

, Sarah Kirkland Snider,

Missy Mazzoli Missy Mazzoli (born October 27, 1980) is an American composer and pianist who is a member of the composition faculty at the Mannes College of Music. She has received critical acclaim for her chamber, orchestral and operatic work. In 2018 she becam ...

Sam Amidon Samuel Tear Amidon (born June 3, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Musical career In 2001, Amidon self-released ''Solo Fiddle'', an album of traditional Irish fiddle instrumentals. Amidon's first album of ...

, Michael Harrison,

Ted Hearne Ted Hearne (born 1982) is an American composer, singer and conductor. He currently lives in Los Angeles, CA. Biography Ted Hearne was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, where he was a member of the Chicago Children's Choir and graduate of W ...

, and 2015 Pulitzer Prize recipient

Julia Wolfe Julia Wolfe (born December 18, 1958) is an American composer and professor of music at New York University. According to ''The Wall Street Journal'', Wolfe's music has "long inhabited a terrain of its own, a place where classical forms are re ...

. Roomful of Teeth have performed at various venues, including

Merkin Hall Merkin Hall is a 449-seat concert hall in Manhattan, New York City. The hall, named in honor of Hermann and Ursula Merkin, is part of the Kaufman Music Center, a complex that includes the Lucy Moses School, a community arts school, and the Speci ...

, (Le) Poisson Rouge, Town Hall (Seattle), the Carlsbad Music Festival (California), Fusebox Festival, MIT Sounding, and the

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...

. The group regularly leads vocal technique workshops, master classes, improv-based workshops, and concerts at colleges, elementary schools, high schools, and community centers across the United States. In August 2014, Roomful of Teeth was spotlighted at the International Federation for Choral Music symposium in Seoul, Korea (one of only three American vocal ensembles invited). The project's debut album, ''Roomful of Teeth'', was released in 2012 and nominated in three categories for the 2014

56th Annual Grammy Awards The 56th Annual Grammy Awards presentation was held on January 26, 2014, at Staples Center in Los Angeles. The show was broadcast on CBS at 8 p.m. ET/PT and was hosted for the third time by LL Cool J. The show was moved to January to avoid comp ...

, including Best Engineer for Classical Album, Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance, and Best Contemporary Classical Composition. The album subsequently received a Grammy for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance. In April 2013, ensemble member

Caroline Shaw Caroline Adelaide Shaw (born August 1, 1982) is an American composer, violinist, and singer. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013 for her a cappella piece ''Partita for 8 Voices'' and the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary ...

received the

Pulitzer Prize for Music The Pulitzer Prize for Music is one of seven Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually in Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first given in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year, and this was eventually converted i ...

for ''

Partita for 8 Voices ''Partita for 8 Voices'' is an a cappella composition by American composer Caroline Shaw. It was composed from 2009 through 2012 for the vocal group Roomful of Teeth and was released on their Grammy Award-winning self-titled debut album on 30 ...

'',The Pulitzer Prize Was Nice and All, but a Work Is Finally Fully Heard
''New York Times'', Music Review, Anthony Tommasini, November 5, 2013. the four movements of which appear on the group’s debut album. An

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...

exclusive EP of ''Partita'' was subsequently released and ranked no. 1 on iTunes Classical charts. Roomful of Teeth’s second full-length recording, ''Render'', was released in April 2015, and featured works by Wally Gunn,

, Caleb Burhans, ensemble tenor Eric Dudley, and artistic director Brad Wells. In October 2019, the band was the subject of a controversy on

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

when several performers of

, including Canadian

Inuk Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and ...

throat singer Overtone singing – also known as overtone chanting, harmonic singing, polyphonic overtone singing, and diphonic singing – is a set of singing techniques in which the vocalist manipulates the resonances of the vocal tract, in order to arous ...

Tanya Tagaq Tanya may refer to: * Tanya (Judaism),an early work of Hasidic philosophy by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi. * Tanya (name), a given name and list of people with the name * Tanya or Lara Saint Paul (born 1946) * List of Mortal Kombat characters#Tany ...

, accused Caroline Shaw and Roomful of Teeth of having engaged in

cultural appropriation Cultural appropriation is the inappropriate or unacknowledged adoption of an element or elements of one culture or identity by members of another culture or identity. This can be controversial when members of a dominant culture appropriate from ...

and

exoticism Exoticism (from "exotic") is a trend in European art and design, whereby artists became fascinated with ideas and styles from distant regions and drew inspiration from them. This often involved surrounding foreign cultures with mystique and fantas ...

for their use of throat singing without sufficiently crediting or compensating the creators of that

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

, in particular in regards to the ensemble's signature work, ''Partita for 8 Voices''. As a result of this criticism, the ensemble agreed to make a number of changes in how they approached source materials, including more prominently crediting teachers and coaches, reading a source acknowledgment statement before performances, and exploring other ways to support the work of indigenous musicians.

Discography

Studio albums * ''Roomful of Teeth'' (2012) * ''Render'' (2015) * ''3'' (2019) EPs * ''Caroline Shaw: Partita for 8 Voices'' (2013) * ''Caroline Shaw: Partita for 8 Voices (Remixes)'' (2016) * ''Michael Harrison: Just Constellations (2020) Other albums * ''The Colorado: Music from the Motion Picture'' (2016) * ''Berio: Sinfonia - Boulez: Notations I–IV - Ravel: La valse, M.72'' (2018) * ''Wally Gunn: The Ascendant'' (2020) Singles * "May the Angels" (2019) * "The Chair" (2019) * "Coloring Book: No. 5, Your People" (2019)

References

External links

*
Bandcamp website for debut, self-titled album

Bandcamp page for sophomore album, ''Render''
{{Authority control Choirs in Massachusetts Grammy Award winners Musical groups established in 2009 2009 establishments in Massachusetts