Roomful of Teeth is not your typical vocal group.  

Between Appalachian yodeling, canto a tenore, Tuvan throat singing, screamo, and a slew of other extended vocal techniques, Roomful of Teeth is unlike anything you've ever heard before, and this weekend Bay Area audiences can hear the group in two distinctly different performances.

On Friday and Saturday, founder Brad Wells and Roomful of Teeth are joining cellist Jeffrey Zeigler and Wilco percussionist Glenn Kotche to provide live accompaniment for "The Colorado," Murat Eyuboglu's documentary film, which is being presented by Stanford Live in Bing Concert Hall. The film features music by Paola Prestini, John Luther Adams, William Brittelle, Shara Nova and Kotche, and narration by Oscar-winning actor Mark Rylance, on a journey through the Colorado River basin and its history. 

Sunday's concert couldn't be more different. At the Taube Atrium Theater, Roomful of Teeth will be performing "Shaw and Shakespeare," a concert of a cappella works set to Shakespearean texts. Co-presented by SF Opera Lab and San Francisco Performances' PIVOT series, the concert includes a piece by composer and Roomful of Teeth member Eric Dudley entitled "QuietUs," which pulls its lyrics from "Hamlet." 



This piece features one of the group's most startling techniques: screamo.

"It's a kind of singing that doesn't draw me musically, but the vocal techniques it uses appealed to me," Wells said. "It's not terribly present in this piece, but there's a point of climax when the singers are doing a kind of screaming belt that momentarily drives it. It's bright, it has a coarseness to it, but it's fleeting -- only six or seven bars.

It's exciting, because it's the first use of that technique in any composed music written for us.

Also being performed on Sunday will be the 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning "Partita for 8 Voices" by Teeth member Caroline Shaw. The four-movement work weaves speech, whispers, sighs, and other vocal effects in a mesmerizing score.


Roomful of Teeth is more than just a bag of vocal tricks. Their musical coordination, superb intonation, and outstanding musicianship puts them in a class all their own.

The group was acclaimed from its inception in 2009. Although, Roomful of Teeth occasionally drew criticism from more traditional corners of the choral establishment, Wells acknowledges that and continues to forge ahead into the unknown. A turning point came with the group's brilliant recording of Shaw's "Partita." The disc won a 2014 Grammy Award and established the Teeth as a major musical force.

"There was no desire to leave the beauty of bel canto singing or the standard choral color -- we love that," Wells said. "We were interested in bringing as much of the expressive power of the voice that humans around the world have developed to one place, sharing that with composers and seeing what was possible."

Roomful Of Teeth's "Tiny Desk Concert" 

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