Caroline Shaw

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Caroline Shaw
Shaw in 2020
Born
Caroline Adelaide Shaw

(1982-08-01) August 1, 1982 (age 41)
Greenville, North Carolina, U.S.
Occupations
  • Composer
  • violinist
  • singer
WorksList of compositions
Websitecarolineshaw.com

Caroline Adelaide Shaw (born August 1, 1982) is an American composer of contemporary classical music, violinist, and singer.[1] She is best known for the a cappella piece Partita for 8 Voices, for which she won the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music.[2] Shaw received the 2022 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her Narrow Sea.

Early life[edit]

Caroline Adelaide Shaw was born on August 1, 1982, in Greenville, North Carolina, in the United States.[1][3] At two years old she began playing the violin, being initially taught the Suzuki method by her mother Jon, a violinist and singer.[4][5][n 1] Early influences included the choir of her local Episcopal church and the organist there who frequently played Bach.[5] NPR's Elena Saavedra Buckley notes that Shaw's "personal place of worship was in front of her Sony boombox radio. She would call into the classical station and request a piece — a duet from The Magic Flute, say — and get ready to record it on cassette when it came on. If they aired the wrong duet, she would call back and correct them."[5] She began writing music when she was 10 years old, mostly in imitation of the chamber music of Mozart and Brahms.[4]

At university, her main focus was on violin performance, aiming to become an orchestral or chamber musician.[7] Shaw received her Bachelor of Music (violin performance) from Rice University in 2004, and her master's degree (violin) from Yale University in 2007. She entered the PhD program in composition in Princeton University in 2010.[1][4]

Career[edit]

At 30, Shaw became the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music for her composition Partita for 8 Voices.[8][9][10][11] The jury citation praised the composition as "a highly polished and inventive a cappella work uniquely embracing speech, whispers, sighs, murmurs, wordless melodies and novel vocal effects."[12] The work comprises four movements inspired by baroque dance forms: Allemande, Sarabande, Courante and Passacaglia. A recording of the work was released by New Amsterdam Records on October 30, 2012, performed by the ensemble Roomful of Teeth (including Shaw). According to Steven Mackey, chair of the Department of Music at Princeton, this is the first Pulitzer Prize awarded to a member of the department. (Milton Babbitt was awarded a Pulitzer citation in 1982 for his life's work as a composer.)[13]

Besides composition, Shaw is known as a musician appearing in many guises. She performs primarily as violinist with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) and as vocalist with Roomful of Teeth. She also works with the Trinity Wall Street Choir, Alarm Will Sound, Attacca Quartet, Wordless Music Orchestra, Ensemble Signal, AXIOM, The Yehudim, Victoire, Opera Cabal, the Mark Morris Dance Group Ensemble, Hotel Elefant, the Oracle Hysterical, Red Light New Music, and Robert Mealy's Yale Baroque Ensemble.[14]

Her works have been performed by Roomful of Teeth, So Percussion, ACME, the Brentano String Quartet, yMusic, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus.[citation needed] Shaw has been a Yale Baroque Ensemble fellow and a Rice University Goliard fellow.[15] She received the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship in 2004/5.[16]

Shaw was the musician in residence at Dumbarton Oaks during the fall of 2014, and was composer in residence with Music on Main in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada through 2016, and she has said that The Evergreen was inspired by a particular tree in Bluffs Park, Galiano Island.[17][18]

In October 2015, rapper Kanye West released a remix of "Say You Will", the opening track from his 2008 album, 808s & Heartbreak. The remix, co-produced by Caroline Shaw, features vocals from Shaw similar to her classical compositions.[19] She also features on "Wolves" and contributed vocals to "Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 2", both from West's seventh studio album, The Life of Pablo.[20] Shaw also contributed vocals to a leaked version of "Only One" that appeared on the internet in February 2016.[21]

Shaw appeared as herself in season 4 of the Amazon Prime series Mozart in the Jungle, for a story line that involved a main character seeking to premiere her piece "Hi" in a competition for conductors. The piece was also played live at the series' release party, with Shaw conducting.[22]

Music[edit]

See also: List of compositions by Caroline Shaw

In 2016, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra commissioned and premiered Shaw's The Baltimore Bomb as part of the orchestra's centennial celebration.[23][24]

She composed the music for Josephine Decker's 2018 feature film, Madeline's Madeline.[25]

In 2018, the BBC with Coretet, The Phillips Collection, the Royal Philharmonic Society and the University of Delaware commissioned Shaw to write two works, Second Essay, Echo and Third Essay: Ruby. These received their world premiere, performed by the Calidore String Quartet, at the Cadogan Hall, London on July 16, 2018, in the BBC Proms, where they followed her 2016 work First Essay, Nimrod. According to Shaw, Nimrod was composed while listening to a recording of Marilynne Robinson's book The Givenness of Things and then in the 2016 US presidential election, which she stated accounted for the "disintegration of elements" in the piece. Shaw stated that Echo alluded to the 'echo' function in the PHP programming language, as well as to physical echoes, while Ruby is named for the Ruby programming language as well as for the gemstone.[26]

In October 2019, several performers of katajjaq, including Canadian Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq, accused Caroline Shaw and Roomful of Teeth of having engaged in cultural appropriation and exoticism for the perceived uncredited quotation of a katajjaq song in the third movement of Partita.[27][28][29] In a public statement released by Caroline Shaw and artistic director Brad Wells, Roomful of Teeth acknowledged that they had hired and studied with Inuit singers in 2010 and that techniques learned from those studies had been used in Partita; they further stated that they believed those "patterns to be sufficiently distinct from katajjaq".[30][31]

In the early 2020s, Shaw joined with singer/songwriter Danni Lee to form Ringdown, "an electronic cinematic pop duo".[32] [33]

Selected discography[edit]

Albums[edit]

Title Year Record label
Evergreen 2022 Nonesuch Records
The Wheel 2022 Alpha Classics
Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part 2021 Nonesuch Records
Narrow Sea 2021 Nonesuch Records
Orange 2019 Nonesuch Records

Featured artist[edit]

List of singles as a featured artist
Title Year Peak chart positions Album
US
Hot 100
"Pt. 2"
(Kanye West featuring Desiigner and Caroline Shaw) 		2016 54 The Life of Pablo

Guest appearances[edit]

List of non-single guest appearances, with other performing artists, showing year released and album name
Title Year Other artist(s) Album
"Say You Will" (Remix) 2015 Kanye West Non-album song
"Only One" (Original Demo) Non-album song
"FML" 2016 Kanye West, The Weeknd The Life of Pablo
"Wolves" Kanye West, Vic Mensa, Sia
"Freestyle 4" Kanye West, Desiigner
"No Mistakes" 2018 Kanye West, Kid Cudi, Charlie Wilson Ye
"Everything" Nas, The-Dream, Kanye West, Tony Williams, 070 Shake Nasir
"Take Me to the Light" 2019 Francis and the Lights, Bon Iver, Kanye West, Chance the Rapper Take Me to the Light

References[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Shaw is distantly related to Chang and Eng Bunker, conjoined twins from then-Siam (now Thailand), who are her great-great-grandfather and great-great-great-uncle.[6]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Wilhoite 2015, § para 1.
  2. ^ Underwood 2016, p. 209.
  3. ^ Finke, § para 2.
  4. ^ a b c Woolfe 2013.
  5. ^ a b c Buckley 2021.
  6. ^ Caroline Shaw Archived July 19, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, Vogue Italia.
  7. ^ Wright 2016, p. 393.
  8. ^ Tsioulcas, Anastasia (April 15, 2013). "Caroline Shaw, 30, Wins Pulitzer For Music". Deceptive Cadence. NPR. Archived from the original on May 17, 2019. Retrieved June 1, 2015.
  9. ^ Fetters, Ashley (April 16, 2013). "Hear the Weird, Lovely A Cappella Suite That Won the Pulitzer Prize for Music". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on March 23, 2019. Retrieved June 1, 2015.
  10. ^ Lowder, J. Bryan (April 17, 2013). "The Strange, Beautiful Music That Won the Pulitzer This Year". Slate. Archived from the original on October 5, 2018. Retrieved June 1, 2015.
  11. ^ Tommasini, Anthony (November 5, 2013). "The Pulitzer Prize Was Nice and All, but a Work Is Finally Fully Heard: Caroline Shaw's 'Partita' Has Premiere by Roomful of Teeth". The New York Times. Archived from the original on March 11, 2015. Retrieved June 1, 2015.
  12. ^ "The Pulitzer Prizes – Citation". pulitzer.org. Archived from the original on September 26, 2015. Retrieved November 2, 2015.
  13. ^ "Princeton University – UPDATE: Princeton's Caroline Shaw wins Pulitzer Prize for music". princeton.edu. Archived from the original on December 8, 2015. Retrieved November 2, 2015.
  14. ^ "Caroline Shaw". carolineshaw.com. Archived from the original on November 1, 2015. Retrieved November 2, 2015.
  15. ^ "Shepherd School of Music – Rice University". rice.edu. Archived from the original on June 30, 2020. Retrieved November 2, 2015.
  16. ^ 2004–2005 Fellows Archived February 2, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, Thomas J. Watson Fellowship
  17. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "Ragazze Quartet – The Evergreen / Root". YouTube.
  18. ^ "composer in residence". musiconmain.ca. Archived from the original on October 14, 2015. Retrieved November 2, 2015.
  19. ^ Gordon, Jeremy (October 19, 2015). "Kanye West Shares New Versions of "Say You Will" and the Weeknd's "Tell Your Friends"". Pitchfork Media. Condé Nast. Archived from the original on October 21, 2015. Retrieved October 22, 2015. Kanye West has shared two new tracks on his Soundcloud: a new version of "Say You Will"... that features Pulitzer-winning musician Caroline Shaw
  20. ^ Young, Alex (February 17, 2016). "Over 100 people contributed to the making of Kanye West's The Life of Pablo". Consequence of Sounds. Archived from the original on May 4, 2016. Retrieved May 3, 2016.
  21. ^ Ortiz, Edwin (February 15, 2016). "A Look at Who's Who on Kanye West's 'The Life of Pablo'". Complex. Archived from the original on February 17, 2016. Retrieved February 15, 2016.
  22. ^ Cooper, Michael (February 18, 2018). "Hear How 'Mozart in the Jungle' Became a New-Music Showcase". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 28, 2020. Retrieved February 21, 2020 – via NYTimes.com.
  23. ^ Smith, Tim (September 19, 2016). "Baltimore Symphony gala with Itzhak Perlman, OrchKids raises $1 million". The Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on September 20, 2016. Retrieved September 19, 2016.
  24. ^ Tim, J. T. Hassell (September 18, 2016). "Baltimore Symphony opens centennial season in rousing style with pie and Perlman". Washington Classical Review. Archived from the original on February 4, 2018. Retrieved September 19, 2016.
  25. ^ Young, Deborah (February 19, 2018). "'Madeline's Madeline': Film Review, Berlin 2018". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on February 20, 2018.
  26. ^ BBC Proms (July 16, 2018). Proms at Cadogan Hall 1 Programme. British Broadcasting Corporation. pp. 5–7.
  27. ^ DeGeorge, Krestia (October 23, 2019). "Acclaimed American choir slammed for use of Inuit throat singing". Arctic Today. Archived from the original on October 26, 2019. Retrieved October 26, 2019.
  28. ^ George, Jane (October 23, 2019). "Acclaimed American choir slammed for use of Inuit throat singing". Nunatsiaq News. Archived from the original on February 7, 2020. Retrieved February 7, 2020.
  29. ^ "'Roomful Of Teeth' On Experimenting With The Human Voice, Refocusing Their Mission". www.wbur.org. October 31, 2019. Archived from the original on February 7, 2020. Retrieved February 7, 2020.
  30. ^ Wells, Brad; Shaw, Caroline. "Public Statement". Scribd. Archived from the original on May 24, 2021. Retrieved October 26, 2019.
  31. ^ dubuquecello (November 30, 2019). "What's mine is mine, what's yours is …". Classical Dark Arts. Archived from the original on February 7, 2020. Retrieved February 7, 2020.
  32. ^ Matthew Neil Andrews. ""This makes me think of you": A conversation with Ringdown's Danni Lee and Caroline Shaw". Retrieved March 24, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  33. ^ "SXSW performer schedule: Ringdown". Retrieved March 24, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

Sources[edit]

Books
Articles
Web

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

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