Les Delices, Roomful Of Teeth and More Set for Five Boroughs Music Festival Lineup, Spring 2014

Five Boroughs Music Festival's 2013-2014 season concludes this spring with presentations of two exciting ensembles in Queens, Manhattan and Brooklyn.

5BMF is thrilled to welcome masters of the French Baroque LES DÉLICES to our artist roster this March. The ensemble will bring their new program Conversations galantes to NYC for the first time, with performances at King Manor Museum (Jamaica, Queens) on March 14th (Manhattan) on March 15th.The program features French Rococo works by 18th century composers including Philidor, Guillemain, Rameau and others.

5BMF's season concludes in May with a presentation of the groundbreaking vocal ensemble ROOMFUL OF TEETH. Fresh off their 2014 Grammy™ win for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance, this genre-bending group will join us for a program of vocal works which showcase the ensemble's wide vocabulary of singing techniques. The program will feature works by Elliot Cole, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Missy Mazzoli, as well as selections from Caroline Shaw's 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning Partita.

LES DÉLICES will perform Friday, March 14 at 6:30pm at King Manor Museum in Queens, NY and Saturday, March 15 at 3:00pm at La Maison Francaise of New York University.. Tickets are $25 for general admission in advance, $30 general admission at the door, and $15 for students for the March 14 show and $30 general admission and $15 for students for the March 15 show. Tickets are available now at www.5BMF.org.

Les Delices is made up of Debra Nagy (baroque oboe), Michael Sponseller (harpsichord), Julie Andrijeski and Scott Metcalfe (baroque violins), and Katie Rietman (cello).

Les Délices' polished, expressive, and dynamic performances of masterpieces and little-known works from the French Baroque have been garnering critical acclaim. Founded in Cleveland in 2006, Les Délices brings together artists with national reputations who share a passion for this exquisite yet seldom heard repertoire. Their performances on period instruments allow them to explore a rich tapestry of tone colors, and the group's name conveys their approach to the music of this era: a delight, a fine delicacy, sumptuous, and exciting. Les Délices' debut CD, "The Tastes Reunited" was named one of the "Top Ten Early Music Discoveries of 2009" (NPR's Harmonia). Les Délices has been featured on WCLV's Around Noon and WKSU's In Performance, NPR's syndicated Harmonia and Sunday Baroque, and their debut CD was featured as part of the Audio-guide for a recent special exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (Watteau, Music, and Theater). In addition to touring engagements, Les Délices presents their own annual concert series in modern art galleries in Cleveland and at Plymouth Church in Shaker Heights, OH, where the ensemble is Artist in Residence.

ROOMFUL OF TEETH will perform Sunday, May 4 at 7:00pm at the Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn. Tickets are $40 VIP Front Island seating ($45 at the door), $35 Premium Rear Island seating ($40 at the door), and $22.50 general admission ($25 at the door). Tickets for this program are available now via TicketWeb.com.

Roomful of Teeth is made up of Cameron Beauchamp, Dashon Burton, Martha Cluver, Eric Dudley, Estelí Gomez, Avery Griffin, Caroline Shaw, and Virginia Warnken, under the direction of Brad Wells.

Founded in 2009 by Brad Wells, Roomful of Teeth is a vocal project dedicated to mining the expressive potential of the human voice. Through study with masters from non-classical traditions the world over, the eight voice ensemble continually expands its vocabulary of singing techniques and, through an on-going commissioning project, invites today's brightest composers to create a repertoire without borders. The ensemble gathers annually at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA), where they've studied Tuvan throat singing, yodeling, belting, Inuit throat singing, Korean P'ansori, Georgian singing and Sardinian cantu a tenore styles with some of the world's top performers and teachers of the styles. Commissioned composers include Rinde Eckert, Judd Greenstein, Caleb Burhans, Merrill Garbus (of tUnE-yArDs), William Brittelle, Sarah Kirkland Snider and MissyMazzoli. The project's debut album, Roomful of Teeth, was released in 2012. The album was nominated in three categories for the 56th Annual GRAMMY Awards, including Best Engineer for Classical Album, Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance, and Best Contemporary Classical Composition for Caroline Shaw's Partita for 8 Voices. Roomful of Teeth received a GRAMMY for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance. In April 2013, ensemble member Caroline Shaw received the Pulitzer Prize in Music for Partita, the four movements of which appear on the debut album. An iTunes exclusive EP of Partita was subsequently released and ranked no. 1 on iTunes Classical charts.

Five Boroughs Music Festival (5BMF) is a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to presenting traditional and contemporary chamber music in all five boroughs of New York City. With the dual aims of bringing affordable, high-caliber chamber music concerts to all parts of NYC and of cultivating new audiences for the genre, 5BMF engages top composers and performers from the New York City region and beyond and partners with many local cultural institutions. 5BMF's programming is rooted in familiar classical music traditions, but is inclusive of a broad range of styles; art song recitals, early music, jazz, new music and other non-classical forms are all represented.

Founded and led since 2007 by Artistic Director Jesse Blumberg, 5BMF has presented over 30 traditional and contemporary chamber music programs in six complete cycles around NYC. 5BMF's commitment to musical outreach and diverse programming has attracted positive attention from the NYC arts community from its earliest days; highlights include a performance for over 1,500 music lovers at the Third Annual Bryant Park Fall Festival in 2010, and the annual presentation of free outdoor concerts for Make Music New York. 5BMF's artist roster is comprised of diverse, talented emerging artists and distinguished musicians alike. 5BMF's venues are just as eclectic, and have included historic NYC landmarks such as Steinway Hall, the University Church at Fordham University, Flushing Town Hall, Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, to name merely a few. Outreach initiatives include public masterclasses; artist talk-backs; and the donation of programming to charitable causes. In 2011, 5BMF presented the World Premiere of its ambitious Five Borough Songbook, a collection of 20 newly commissioned vocal chamber works from 20 composers. Over the course of the 2011-2012 season, 5BMF premiered the Songbook in each of NYC's five boroughs, and released a 2-CD album of the collection with GPR Records.

Further information can be found at www.5BMF.org or via email: info@5BMF.org

Photo Credit: 5 Broroughs Music Festival