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...Alto Virginia Warnken was a very fine soloist in the single-movement cantata Bekennen will ich seinen Namen (BWV 200), which features one of Bach’s most endearing melodies. Warnken’s dark, rich voice was a pleasure to hear, especially because she deployed it with such elegance and taste...
The sixteenth-century art historian Giorgio Vasari describes a picture by Fra Bartolomeo—“The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine,” at the Pitti Palace—in which two child angels are seen playing stringed instruments. One of them, Vasari writes, is a lutenist painted “with a leg drawn up and his instrument resting upon it, and with the hands touching the strings in the act of running over them, an ear intent on the harmony, the head upraised, and the mouth slightly open, in such a way that whoever beholds him cannot persuade himself that he should not also hear the voice.”
(Excerpt) Halfway through the Green Mountain Project’s Monday performance of Claudio Monteverdi’s “Vespero della Beata Vergine,” as Jason McStoots and Owen McIntosh virtuosically tripped through the echoing angelic lauds of “Duo seraphim,” Brian Giebler sidled in at mention of the Trinity, and the song coalesced into triadic solidity. It epitomized the music’s palpable architecture. Monteverdi historically straddled a shift in musical thought, from horizontal counterpoint to vertical harmony. One could hear ideas that once would have made Renaissance waves being stacked into pillars and vaults.
(EXCERPT) There aren’t many words among the sighs, belts and purrs of Caroline Shaw’s vocal octet “Partita” (2009-12), and at first hearing they sound like gibberish. Take these, purloined from Sol LeWitt’s “Wall Drawing 305”: “The eighty-sixth, eighty-seventh and eighty-eighth points are located symmetrically across the central vertical axis of the wall.” It’s about lines and connections, words that in Ms. Shaw’s “Passacaglia” movement disappear into a thicket of nonsensical sibilance as eight speakers overlap.
(Excerpt) The saucy “Allemande” from Shaw’s “Partita for 8 Voices” provided some welcome levity, the singers combining geometry (“To the side,” “To the midpoint”) with square dancing (“Allemande left and right”) before swinging into a fugal treatment of “The detail of the pattern is movement,” from T. S. Eliot’s “Burnt Norton.” Judd Greenstein’s more straightforward “Run Away” featured a clarion solo from Virginia Warnken, and Wells’s “Otherwise” was anchored by a resonant Dashon Burton. The premieres were intriguing, but it was the performers who starred, Roomful of Teeth creating a roomful of voices.
Jeffrey Gantz can be reached at jeffreymgantz@gmail.com.
November 10, 2014 by TOM HUIZENGA • Mix a bit of yodeling with Tuvan throat singing, add in a pinch of Sardinian cantu a tenore, fold in compositions from cutting-edge composers and you have the vocal group Roomful of Teeth. This eight-voice ensemble, which includes the 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw, is gleefully dismantling the traditional definition of ensemble singing right before our ears (and teeth!).
For Full Article and Recording, Click Here
Virginia Warnken was recently featured on Nola.com for her win at the 56th Grammy Awards with ensemble Roomful of Teeth. Louisiana native and Roomful of Teeth mezzo-soprano Virginia Warnken discusses her win and her journey from beginning her career to performing at the Grammy’s.
Regarding winning a Grammy Award, Warnken said, “It’s a cool honor … It’s really surreal. But the thing is, nothing’s changed so far. Honestly, I don’t think it’s set in yet.” –Virginia Warnken
Read the full article on Nola.com here.
As a member of Roomful of Teeth, Virginia Warnken performed at the 56th Annual Grammy Award Pre-Telecast. In addition to performing, the group was honored with a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music / Small Ensemble Performance.
RantChic recently listed the Roomful of Teeth performance at the 56th Grammy Awards as one of the twenty best moments from the event.
Read the full article here.
Watch the full Pre-Telecast ceremony here and see Virginia perform with Roomful of Teeth at 01:09:40.
