Courtesy photo.
SUMMARY
- UCSB Arts & Lectures presents the Southern California premiere of Roomful of Teeth with Gabriel Kahane
- Sunday, March 24 | 4 p.m. | Hahn Hall
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- The Grammy Award-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth presents the Southern California premiere of a program featuring works by founder and performing member Caroline Shaw and special guest Gabriel Kahane
- $40 / $10 UCSB students (Current student ID required) (Limited availability, tickets selling fast)
- Tickets & Info: www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu
“Music for the 21st century.” The Nation
“The singers in Roomful of Teeth produce music that’s both primal and sophisticated, ancient and startlingly modern.” The New Yorker
SANTA BARBARA — UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Roomful of Teeth with Gabriel Kahane on 4 p.m. Sunday, March 24 at Hahn Hall. Grammy Award winners Roomful of Teeth have carved themselves a niche as one of America’s most interesting contemporary vocal ensembles. Collaborating with artists and thinkers from around the world, the group seeks to amplify voices old and new and expand the capabilities of the human voice. Their engaging new program features works by founding member Caroline Shaw, special guest Gabriel Kahane and other composers known for creating meaningful and adventurous new music.
Program
Gabriel Kahane: Works to be announced from stage
Caroline Shaw: The Isle
Gabriel Kahane: Elevator Songs
“Roomful of Teeth – Shaw: Allemande (1st mvt) from Partita for 8 Voices” (CPR Classical)
ABOUT ROOMFUL OF TEETH
Roomful of Teeth is a Grammy-winning vocal band dedicated to reimagining the expressive potential of the human voice. By engaging collaboratively with artists, thinkers, and community leaders from around the world, the group seeks to uplift and amplify voices old and new while creating and performing meaningful and adventurous music.
Founded in 2009 by Brad Wells, the band was incubated at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in North Adams, Massachusetts, where members studied with some of the world’s top performers and teachers and commissioned composers who were known for breaking molds. They have learned that the boundaries of the human voice are never what they seem, that rules can be bent, and broken and perhaps they should be.
As the world rapidly changes, Roomful of Teeth is cultivating deeper relationships with technology, continuing to expand the capabilities of the human voice, aiming to be unburdened by physical limitations. They are excited about new collaborative projects that are focused on the stories of place, home and community in the diverse environments our planet has provided.
The group explores these boundaries with passionate curiosity, contagious enthusiasm and deep gratitude. Learn more at roomfulofteeth.org.
ABOUT GABRIEL KAHANE
Gabriel Kahane is a musician and storyteller whose work increasingly exists at the intersection of art and social practice. Hailed as “one of the finest songwriters of the day” by The New Yorker, he is known to haunt basement rock clubs and august concert halls alike, where you’ll likely find him in the green room, double-fisting coffee and a book.
He has released four albums as a singer-songwriter, including, most recently, the intimate Book of Travelers (Nonesuch Records), which Rolling Stone called “a stunning portrait of a singular moment in America.” As a composer, he has been commissioned by many of America’s leading arts institutions, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Carnegie Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the Public Theater, which in 2012 presented his musical February House.
In 2019, Kahane was named the inaugural Creative Chair for the Oregon Symphony, following the premiere in Portland of his oratorio emergency shelter intake form, a work that explores inequality in America through the lens of housing issues. The piece was released as an album in March of 2020, and is scheduled for performance by half a dozen other American orchestras in the coming years.
In his 2023-24 season, Kahane embarks on a new collaborative commissioning project In the Garden of the Gift with the Attacca Quartet, Pekka Kuusisto, and Roomful of Teeth as part of a two year initiative with San Francisco Performances, with additional performances scheduled around the U.S. and Europe. Season highlights include the European premiere of emergency shelter intake form in London with the BBC Concert Orchestra, duo recitals with Jeffrey Kahane, a conducting appearance with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the New York premiere of his piano concerto Heirloom by Jeffrey Kahane and The Knights. Venues include UCLA’s Nimoy Theater, Seattle’s Meany Center, and New York’s 92NY.
Kahane’s discography also includes 2014’s The Ambassador, which received an acclaimed staging at BAM, directed by Tony and Olivier Award-winner John Tiffany; an album of chamber music, The Fiction Issue, with the string quartet Brooklyn Rider and vocalist/composer Shara Nova; a recording with The Knights of his orchestral song cycle Crane Palimpsest; as well as the original cast album for February House.
A frequent collaborator across a range of musical communities, Gabriel has worked with an array of artists including Paul Simon, Sufjan Stevens, Andrew Bird, Phoebe Bridgers, Caroline Shaw, and Chris Thile. After nearly two decades in Brooklyn, Kahane relocated with his family to Portland, Oregon, in March of 2020. Their freakishly self-possessed cat, Roscoe Greebletron Jones III, when not under investigation for securities fraud, continues his fruitless attempts to monetize his Instagram account.
ABOUT UCSB ARTS & LECTURES
Founded in 1959, UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) is the largest and most influential arts and lectures organization between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A&L annually presents more than a hundred public events, from critically acclaimed concerts and dance performances by world-renowned artists to talks by groundbreaking authors and film series at UCSB and Santa Barbara-area venues. With a mission to “educate, entertain and inspire,” A&L also oversees an outreach program that brings visiting artists and speakers into local classrooms and other venues for master classes, open rehearsals, discussions and more, serving K-12 students, college students and the general public.
Roomful of Teeth with Gabriel Kahane is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures in association with UCSB Department of Music.
Tickets are $40 / $10 UCSB students (Current student ID required).
For tickets or more information, call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535 or purchase online at www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu
UCSB Arts & Lectures gratefully acknowledges our Community Partners the Natalie Orfalea Foundation & Lou Buglioli for their generous support of the 2023-2024 season.