‘We’ve never heard music like this before’

‘We’ve never heard music like this before’

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norman lebrecht

April 12, 2017

A mini-doc on the indefinable vocal group, Roomful of Teeth.

Worth nine minutes of your time.

Comments

  • Mario Denis says:

    sounds like Philip Glass stuffmusic.

  • Fred says:

    I respect what these musicians are doing…even though, after buying and listening to one of their albums, I hope never to hear their music again in my life.

  • respect says:

    Not worth nine minutes. These vocal startups, while often admirable in intent, are vanity projects for conductors. They aren’t doing anything that various Europeans radio choruses are doing with infinitely greater resources.

    • MWnyc says:

      Well, this particular group has no conductor, so if it’s a vanity project, it’s a vanity project for all of them together – and it’s as much of a vanity project as any string quartet or woodwind quintet or percussion quartet or any other chamber group is for its members.

      And the composers who write for this group are writing for that small number of singers, usually with a solo voice on each part, rather than for the 40 voices or so of a European radio choir, just as the composers who write pieces for string quartet or woodwind quintet, etc., are deliberately not writing for the “infinitely greater resources” of a symphony orchestra.

  • John says:

    Heard them in Denver before a fairly packed house and they were phenomenal. And Denver isn’t the most musically progressive town. It’s obvious that “Respect” above doesn’t know much about this group.

  • Joel Stein says:

    Caroline Shaw, one of their members, won the Pulitzer Prize recently.

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