Roomful of Teeth
Monday, October 5, 2026 at 7:30pm
First Congregational Church
 
Roomful of Teeth

Roomful of Teeth

Melissa Wimbish

Martha Cluver

Sophie Michaux

Tynan Davis

Steven Bradshaw

Thomas McCargar

Thann Scoggin

Cameron Beauchamp

Roomful of Teeth is a Grammy Award-winning, genre-defying vocal group that explores and celebrates the potential of the human voice through adventurous music creation, performance, recording and education. By engaging collaboratively with artists, thinkers, and community leaders from around the world, the group seeks to uplift and amplify all voices by creating and performing meaningful and adventurous music using a continuously expanding vocabulary of singing techniques.

Roomful of Teeth has collaborated with today’s most compelling music makers to create an ever growing catalogue of over 100 new works composed for the group. Recent performances include appearances at Carnegie Hall, 92NY, Paris Philharmonie, Melbourne Recital Centre, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Prague Sounds, Los Angeles Philharmonic and The Barbican.

Roomful of Teeth has won two GRAMMY Awards in the Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance category for their eponymous first album released in 2012, and their 2023 album Rough Magic. Caroline Shaw’s Partita for 8 Voices, which was featured on the group’s first album, was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize. In 2026, Roomful of Teeth and Gabriel Kahane released the album Elevator Songs, about which NPR’s Tom Huezinga raved, “The album offers poignant depictions of our emotionally messy lives in arresting, bespoke performances by Roomful of Teeth, a group that proves it can wrap its individual and collective voices around any music and any concept.”

Teeth's recordings have been featured on television and in film, including Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline, Netflix’s Dark, Jeen-Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy, and Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé. The group performed the original film score by Carter Burwell for the film Catherine called Birdy, as well as Caroline Shaw’s original score for Ken Burn’s 2024 documentary Leonardo da Vinci with the Attacca Quartet and So Percussion.

To open Season 11, ensembleNEWSRQ joins forces with the renowned vocal band Roomful of Teeth for a boundary-pushing program of vocal and instrumental works by Leilehua Lanzilotti, Peter Shin, Wally Gunn, and Pulitzer Prize Winning composer Caroline Shaw. Exploring the expressive possibilities of the human voice in contemporary chamber music, this program reflects on the space between certainty and possibility in a world that is constantly shifting.

Program

Peter Shin
Peter Shin

Peter Shin

b. 1991

Bits Torn from Words

Year: 2019-22, rev. 2023Duration: 5'
Roomful of Teeth,voice
Leilehua Lanzilotti
Leilehua Lanzilotti

Leilehua Lanzilotti

b. 1983

On Stochastic Wave Behavior

Year: 2021Duration: 12'
Roomful of Teeth,voice
Caroline Shaw
Caroline Shaw

Caroline Shaw

Americanb. 1982

The Isle

Year: 2023Duration: 15'
Roomful of Teeth,voice
Caroline Shaw
Caroline Shaw

Caroline Shaw

Americanb. 1982

This Might Also Be a Form of Dreaming

Year: 2016Duration: 21'
Roomful of Teeth,voice
Samantha Bennett,viola
Natalie Helm,cello
Asher Carlson,bass clarinet
George Nickson,percussion
Sam Nelson,piano
Wally Gunn
Wally Gunn

Wally Gunn

b. 1971

The Ascendant

Year: 2012 and 2016Duration: 22'
Roomful of Teeth,voice
George Nickson,drum kit
[ designed and built ] by { Hojoon Kim }