The BVU Music Department Presents
ROOMFUL OF TEETH Presented as part of the Doris Grau Performing Arts Series
SUNDAY, NOV. 12 | 3 P.M. SCHALLER MEMORIAL CHAPEL BUENA VISTA UNIVERSITY
PARTITA FOR 8 VOICES: ALLEMANDE AND SARABANDE - CAROLINE SHAW
Composed over three summers from 2009-2011, in collaboration with Roomful of Teeth during their residencies at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), Caroline Shaw’s Partita for 8 Voices was nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition and received the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music. It is the only Pulitzer awarded to an a cappella vocal work, and Shaw, a singer in the ensemble, is the youngest composer ever to have received the prize. The score’s inscription reads: Partita is a simple piece. Born of a love of surface and structure, of the human voice, of dancing and tired ligaments, of music, and of our basic desire to draw a line from one point to another. Each movement takes a cue from the traditional baroque suite in initial meter and tone, but the familiar historic framework is soon stretched and broken, through “speech, whispers, sighs, murmurs, wordless melodies and novel vocal effects” (Pulitzer jury citation). Roomful of Teeth’s utterly unique approach to singing and vocal timbre originally helped to inspire and shape the work during its creation, and the ensemble continues to refine and reconsider the colors and small details with every performance. Allemande opens with the organized chaos of square dance calls overlapping with technical wall drawing directions of the artist Sol LeWitt, suddenly congealing into a bright, angular tune that never keeps its feet on the ground for very long. There are allusions to the movement’s intended simulation of motion and of space in the short phrases of text throughout, which are sometimes sung and sometimes embedded as spoken texture. Sarabande’s quiet restraint in the beginning is punctured in the middle by an ecstatic, belted melody that resolves quietly at the end. Of the premiere of Shaw’s Partita, New York magazine wrote: “She has discovered a lode of the rarest commodity in contemporary music: joy.” And it is with joy that this piece is meant to be received in years to come.
BITS TORN FROM WORDS, MVT. 4 - PETER S. SHIN
Bits torn from words examines the mental health condition of generalized anxiety disorder – how the dread of even the most inconsequential circumstances feels gargantuanly out of proportion to its relative impact. In expanded song form, voices traverse through wavering pitches, surrendered exclamations, and quivering breaths, all conveying the vivid manifestations of anxiety in the body and psyche. The title comes from the opening pages of Dictee (1982) by the pioneering Korean American conceptual artist Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951-82). Through intricate diagrams and vivid prose, Cha illustrates the visceral phenomenology of vocalization, and the yearning to say and be heard. The fourth movement, GaNaDaRaMaBaSa AJaChaKaTaPaHa (bridge), concentrates on the 14 consonants of the Korean alphabet, the very roots and building blocks of the language through aspirated articulations layered in chained suspensions.
GANADARAMABASA AJACHAKATAPAHA (BRIDGE) 가 나 다 라 마 바 사 아 자 차 카 타 파 하 가나다라마바사아자차카타파하
ON STOCHASTIC WAVE BEHAVIOR - LEILEHUA LANZILOTTI
Wayfinding, observing nature, and respecting the ocean have been present since my childhood growing up in Hawaiʻi. So when Rónadh and Brad asked me to be part of the National Science Foundation funded “A few waves do most of the work” project, I felt very connected to the ideas of integrating knowledge and research about the ocean into classrooms. Reclaiming language and supporting indigenous language revitalization have been essential to my artistic work in the past year. Connecting to language, meeting with my family every weekend to support safe learning environments, all of these actions were content-based towards a new way of approaching my compositional practice. A language that is changing, that is evolving, that is new is alive. Similarly, haku mele
(compositional) practices that engage new sounds through an indigenous lens embrace ‘Ōlelo Hawaiʻi as an active part of the creative process. Indigenous communities often struggle to remain “authentic,” pushing up against archaic stereotypes and a genuine desire to preserve culture. In Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty, J. Kehaulani Kauanui writes: In the U.S. context, as Kevin Bruyneel argues, one of the defining elements of American colonial rule is the fastening of Indigenous Peoples to the concept of “colonial time” by locating them “out of time,” where they are not allowed modernity. This “shackling indigenous identity to an archaic form” upholds the concept of authentic Indigenous Peoples always being already primitive/static (positioned to continuously struggle for recognition of their humanity), while the colonizer is always characterized as civilized/advanced, thereby rationalizing domination of Indigenous Peoples as a form of “progress.” It is this enduring notion of the “savage” that continues to be used by states in their attempt to justify political subordination, such as the “domestic dependent nation” status subject to U.S. plenary power in the case of federally recognized tribal nations. Kauanui, J. Kehaulani. “Chapter One: Contested Indigeneity.” In Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty, 53–54. Durham: Duke University Press, 2018.
There is much more to read about the indigenous language revitalization, but I like the idea that Prof. Cox’s research extends to include metaphors for that movement: a few waves can make a difference, have made our work as Kanaka Maoli artists relevant to today’s dynamic landscape where science and indigenous knowledge celebrate the power of nature. Through radical indigenous contemporaneity, this work hopes to make those connections both in the classroom and in the community.
TEXT AND TRANSLATIONS Hawaiian Dictionary. Edited by Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986. i. ō ō. 2. vi. To remain, endure, survive, continue, go on, exist; continuing. . . . Ke ō nei nō kēlā mele, that song still survives now. ʻō. 1. loc. n. There, yonder, beyond ʻōpikipiki. nvs. Anxiety, mental disturbance; agitated, as the sea. pikipiki / pikipikiʻō. vs. Rough, stormy, choppy, as the sea. Fig., agitated in spirit. kiki. 4. vt. to kiss Eng. Rare. kikī. 1. vi. To flow swiftly, spout; to spurt, as water from a hose. kīkī. 1. . . . Waikīkī (name), spouting water [a reference to the many springs and streams in the Waikīkī ahupuaʻa that extended far inland]. kikiki. 2. Short for ʻūkikiki, a fish. n. A bird. 4. Same as ʻiʻiʻi or makaliʻi, tiny. kikikiki. 1. To mend, as a crack in a wooden bowl. ii. nāueue nāueue, nauweuwe. Redup. of naue. hoʻonāueue. To cause to sway back and forth. neʻe heʻe. Vi. To creep along, as a child or octopus. Lit., octopus hitch. neʻeneʻe. 1. Redup. of neʻe. [creep.] neʻeneʻe ā pili to move close by, snuggle. iii. nā’ū nāʻū. 4. vi. Sighing deeply; to prolong the breath, especially in a children’s game at Kona: children would
make a prolonged u-sound just at sunset, believing that the sun would not set as long as they held their breath; to play nāʻū. Hāʻule naoa ka wai a ke kēhau, ke nāʻū lā nā kamaliʻi (chant for Kamehameha II), the water of the kēhau mist falls rippling as the children play nāʻū.* nāueue, nauweuwe. Redup. of naue. naue, nauwe. vi. To move, shake, rock, sway, tremble; to quake, as the earth; to vibrate; to march; loose and insecure, as a tooth; revolving, as hips in a hula. . . . hoʻonaue. To cause to shake, revolve, sway, rock; to disturb. Ka ua hōʻoni, hoʻonaue i ka puʻu koʻa, the rain sways in a dance and shakes the coral pile. iv. nalukai nāu. n-poss. Yours, belonging to you, for you, by you (singular, a-form; Gram. 9.11.) Nāu mai ā naʻu aku, your turn and then mine. naʻu. n-poss. Mine, belonging to me, for me, by me (singular, a-form; Gram. 9.11.) nalu. 1. nvi. Wave, surf; full of waves; to form waves; wavy, as wood grain. Ke nalu nei ka moana. The ocean is full of waves. hoʻonalu. To form waves. (PPN gnalu.) 2. vt. To ponder, meditate, reflect, mull over, speculate. . . . 3. n. Amnion, amniotic fluid. (PPN, PCP lanu; note Hawaiian metathesis.) nalukai. vs. Weatherworn, as old canoes or persons who have weathered the storms of life. Lit., ocean wave. nalunalu. vs. Rough, of a sea with high waves; to form high waves. (PPN ngalungalu.)
- INTERMISSION SPEAKING IN TONGUES - GABRIEL KAHANE TEXT To be honest, this hotel is kind of creepy The ice machine is speaking in tongues Aggressively cheerful cooking shows haunt the tv We can’t find sleep in this iron lung
And the woman next door she is in mourning And the couple upstairs, well, good for them We shuffle onto the window, storm clouds are forming And the streets are filled with wild-eyed men
We are longing for some familiar city Toronto, Milwaukee, LA But the weatherman he is whispering a certain elegy You won’t be traveling today...
MATH, THE ONE WHICH IS SWEET - ANGÉLICA NEGRÓN
“math, the one which is sweet” is the sound of getting lost in new love—of giving in to excitement, savoring anticipation, surrendering to daydreams. It’s the thrill of getting to know someone new, and the lens of tenderness through which everything about them is perceived. It dismantles and plays with the false dichotomies of love: logic & emotion, order & abandon, repression & disinhibition. It’s an invitation to these dualities, like two people falling in love, to coexist in the dazed delight of newfound connection. This piece speaks to the intimacy and vulnerability inherent in giving, receiving, and letting go of love.
TEXT
math, the one which is sweet Raquel Salas Rivera sand of each beach where i forgot i was a body sea of grape and dry algae packing material for last names coding for the time machine that between futures eclipses an underground the rain’s dirt which approximates the cave’s air the reef’s opening where i enter and leave my town like we do in a bottom where fins glow
i suddenly cease we don’t need lungs the mouths that kiss the air the olas math the one which is sweet completely a language for when we are a hybrid of plane and gull your voice its convex exactitude the chunk of satellite that collapsed towards the water’s celestial cemetery like that
THE ISLE - CAROLINE SHAW
The Isle begins with a cloud of murmuring voices — a musical imagining of something hinted at in Shakespeare’s stage directions in The Tempest. The calls for “a burden, dispersedly” and “solemn music” suggest an off-stage refrain and/or perhaps something even more otherworldly. In Shakespearean Metaphysics, Michael Witmore writes: Like the island itself, which seems to be the ultimate environment in which the play’s action takes place, music is a medium that flows from, within, and around that imaginary place into the ambient space of performance proper. If some of the courtiers from Naples and Milan are lulled to sleep by the island’s ‘solemn music’, the audience can hear this music in a way that it cannot feel the hardness of the boards that the sleeping players lie on.
In taking cues from this reading of the play, I’ve constructed my own musical reading of the island of The Tempest. Three monologues, by Ariel, Caliban, and Prospero, are set in three distinct ways. Ariel’s initial song of welcome appears, for the most part, homophonically, although its break from the quasi-robotic delivery (into the “burden, dispersedly”) points to the character’s vaporous & ethereal nature. Caliban’s famous description of the island as “full of noises” finds its home in a distraught and lonely monodic song, ornamented and driven by extraneous sounds. Prospero’s evocation of the various features and inhabitants of the island (from the final act) breaks apart
into spoken voices that eventually dissolve into the wordless voices of the beginning, mirroring his pledge to throw his book of spells into the sea (and possibly to return to the island’s pre-lingual state). The harmonic material of the beginning and the end of the piece (the murmuring voices) is a 24-chord progression that includes all major and minor triads of the Western 12-note system (for fun). As Prospero says: “But this rough magic I here abjure, and when I have required some heavenly music, which even now I do, to work mine end upon their senses that this airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, and deeper than did ever plummet sound I’ll drown my book. (Solemn music)”
LIBRETTO
ARIEL: Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands: Curtsied when you have, and kissed The wild waves whist, Foot it featly here, and there, and sweet sprites bear the burden. [Burden dispersedly, within] Hark, hark, bow wow: the watchdogs bark, bow wow. [Burden dispersedly, within] Hark, hark, I hear, the strain of strutting Chanticleer Cry cock-a-diddle-dow. Full fathom five thy father lies, Of his bones are coral made: Those are pearls that were his eyes, Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea change Into something rich and strange: Sea nymphs hourly ring his knell. [Burden: ding dong.] Hark now I hear them, ding dong bell. CALIBAN: Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to dream again. PROSPERO: You elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves, And you that on the sands with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him When he comes back; you demi-puppets that By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime Is to make midnight mushrumps, that rejoice To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid, Weak masters though you be, I have bedimmed The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds, And ’twixt the green sea and the azured vault Set roaring war; to the dread rattling thunder Have I given fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oak With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory Have I made shake, and by the spurs plucked up The pine and cedar; graves at my command Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let ’em forth By my so potent art. But this rough magic I here abjure, and when I have required Some heavenly music, which even now I do, To work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff, Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, And deeper than did ever plummet sound I’ll drown my book. (Solemn music)
ROOMFUL OF TEETH SINGERS
ESTELÍ GOMEZ MINGJIA CHEN ELIZA BAGG JODIE LANDAU
SOUND ENGINEER RANDALL SQUIRES
STEVEN BRADSHAW THOMAS MCCARGAR THANN SCOGGIN CAMERON BEAUCHAMP
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Roomful of Teeth is a Grammy Award-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 using a continuously expanding vocabulary of singing techniques.
Roomful of Teeth has built a significant and ever-growing catalog of music through deep collaboration with a broad range of composers including Julia Wolfe, David Lang, Missy Mazzoli, William Brittelle, Angélica Negrón, inti figgisvizueta, Paola Prestini, Nathalie Joachim, Caroline Shaw, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Anna Clyne, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Cava Menzies, Judd Greenstein, Terry Riley, Toby Twining, Ted Hearne, Eve Beglarian, Caleb Burhans, Ambrose Akinmusire, Michael Harrison, Peter S. Shin, and Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate.
Recent appearances include performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Walt Disney Concert Hall, King’s Place in London, and the Barbican. The group has also performed commissioned works for Roomful of Teeth and orchestra with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, The Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony, and others, and have also moved into stage work with the visionary opera director Peter Sellars in Claude Vivier’s opera, Kopernikus. Roomful of Teeth discography includes their eponymous first album, released in 2012, which was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance, and featured Roomful of Teeth member Caroline Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize winning piece Partita for 8 Voices. Other recordings include: Render (2015), The Colorado (2016), Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble’s album Sing Me Home which won the 2016 Grammy for Best World Music Album, and 2 EPs: The Ascendant (Wally Gunn) and Just Constellations (Michael Harrison). Their newest album, Rough Magic was released in May 2023 to ecstatic critical acclaim. 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. Roomful of Teeth is devoted to creating beauty and community with passionate curiosity, contagious enthusiasm, and deep gratitude. Visit www.roomfulofteeth.org to learn more and to support the group’s work.
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There is a place for you in the musical ensembles of BVU! Become a member of one of the fastest-growing activities on campus. Our ensembles present four to six on-campus performances per year as well as numerous performances around our community. As part of the Doris Grau Performing Arts Series, choir students get to share the stage with professional performers of international renown. Students who participate in band and choir at BVU also have the opportunity to travel around the United States and internationally! For more information about how to get involved, music scholarships for incoming students, or how to support music programming at BVU, please contact:
Christopher R. Phalen, Director of Choral Activities Email: phalenc@bvu.edu Phone: 712.749.2193 Edson Hall, Rm. 109
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SPECIAL THANKS!
Special thanks to the generosity of the late Doris Grau, whose financial contribution to the BVU Choral Program has made today’s program possible. To President Brian Lenzmeier, Dixee Bartholomew-Feis, Dean of the School of Liberal Arts, and the entire faculty and staff of BVU for your support of the arts here on campus! Thanks to Dalton Walker, Events Support Coordinator, for providing technical light and sound support during our performances. Also to our facilities and custodial staff for keeping rehearsals and performance spaces running smoothly. Lastly, thank you to our community members, parents, and friends for your continued support. We appreciate you! Thank you!
UPCOMING BVU MUSIC PERFORMANCES BVU Jazz Band Concert Anderson Auditorium, Siebens Forum Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023 | 7 p.m.
Candlelight Christmas Choir Concert Lakeside Presbyterian Church in Storm Lake Saturday, Dec. 9, 2023 | 7:30 p.m. Seasonal Celebration with BVU Music Schaller Memorial Chapel Sunday, Dec. 10, 2023 | 3 p.m.
BVU CHOIRS
Christopher R. Phalen, Conductor Barbara Wells, Collaborative Pianist Soprano 1 Emma Chase * # Kaitlin Christensen Maddie Gradowski * # Hannah Illg-Keith Emelia Jacobs Haley Malloy % Soprano 2 Katrina Burt April Cole Nancy Flores Hannah Frohling Tiffany Garcia Emma Harrington * Riley Haschke Angelica Henriquez % Allyson Herrley Madison Hewett Cheyenne Kness Hannah Malloy % Mackenzie Schwery Megan Shannahan * # DeLana Sherrill Cassidy Weide *
Alto 1 Kyra Bjornstad Emily Campbell Dulaney Clubb Amil-lion Derrick Brennan Fay # Taylor Fritz Kate Hargis Sam Johnson Julia Renkly Ashley Stueven * + Maya Thatcher Alexa Waldhoff * ^ Mary Woodard Alto 2 Annika Borkgren Isabel Casey * # Brooklyn Collins * Maddy Dutcher Libby Franken Geneva Galler Lilly Guinan * Ashley Hout Morgan Malli
Keyanna Rote Maggie Vaske Marlene White Ava Wilson Tenor 1 Kristen Davis Casey Namanny # JJ Ussery Tenor 2 Jax Jungers * Skyler Lockwood Evan Pearce * % # Hadyn Piskorski Kaden Sadler Daniel Zeman * % Baritone Hank Brandenburg Joseph Groetken Tion Schuknecht James Snow % # Aaron Van Roekel Aiden Webber
Bass Elijah Douglass % Nova Garcia Cameron Germain * % # Randy Howard Skyler Keller *
* Denotes Vista Singers + Denotes Music Education Major
% Denotes Music Production Major
^ Denotes Arts Management MajorMusic - Denotes Music Performance Minor
# Denotes Choir Officer