Caroline Shaw | |
|---|---|
 Shaw in 2020 | |
| Born | Caroline Adelaide Shaw August 1, 1982 |
| Occupations |
|
| Works | List of compositions |
| Website | carolineshaw |
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.
Caroline Adelaide Shaw was born on August 1, 1982, in Greenville, North Carolina. [1] [3] She is distantly related through her mother to Chang and Eng Bunker, conjoined twins from then-Siam (now Thailand), who are her great-great-grandfather and great-great-great-uncle. [4] At two years old, Shaw began playing the violin, being initially taught the Suzuki method by her mother Jon, a violinist and singer. [5] [6] Early influences included the choir of her local Episcopal church and the organist there who frequently played Bach. [6] 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." [6] She began writing music when she was 10 years old, mostly in imitation of the chamber music of Mozart and Brahms. [5]
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] [5]
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, [15] So Percussion, [16] the Brentano String Quartet, [17] yMusic, [18] and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. [19] Shaw has been a Yale Baroque Ensemble fellow and a Rice University Goliard fellow. [20] She received the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship in 2004/5. [21]
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. [22] [23]
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. [24] 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 . [25] Shaw also contributed vocals to a leaked version of "Only One" that appeared on the internet in February 2016. [26]
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. [27]
In 2016, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra commissioned and premiered Shaw's The Baltimore Bomb as part of the orchestra's centennial celebration. [28] [29]
She composed the music for Josephine Decker's 2018 feature film, Madeline's Madeline . [30]
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. [31]
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. [32] [33] [34] 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". [35] [36]
In the early 2020s, Shaw joined with singer/songwriter Danni Lee to form Ringdown, "an electronic cinematic pop duo". [37] [38]
Byron Schenkman & Friends (re-named Sound Salon) commissioned Caroline Shaw’s Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings to mark their 10th anniversary season. The work was premiered on March 26, 2023, with Byron Schenkman performing, at Benaroya Hall in Seattle, WA. [39] [40]
| 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 |
| Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Album |
|---|---|---|---|
| US Hot 100 | |||
| "Pt. 2" (Kanye West featuring Desiigner and Caroline Shaw) | 2016 | 54 | The Life of Pablo |
| 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 |
Shulamit Ran is an Israeli-American composer. She moved from Israel to New York City at 14, as a scholarship student at the Mannes College of Music. Her Symphony (1990) won her the Pulitzer Prize for Music. She was the second woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, the first being Ellen Taaffe Zwilich in 1983. Ran was a professor of music composition at the University of Chicago from 1973 to 2015. She has performed as a pianist in Israel, Europe and the U.S., and her compositional works have been performed worldwide by a wide array of orchestras and chamber groups.
Hilary Hahn is an American violinist. A three-time Grammy Award winner, she has performed throughout the world as a soloist with leading orchestras and conductors, and as a recitalist. She is an avid supporter of contemporary classical music, and several composers have written works for her, including concerti by Edgar Meyer and Jennifer Higdon, partitas by Antón García Abril, two serenades for violin and orchestra by Einojuhani Rautavaara, and a violin and piano sonata by Lera Auerbach.
Michael Harrison is an American contemporary classical music composer and pianist living in New York City. He was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 2018–2019.
Gabriela Lena Frank is an American pianist and composer of contemporary classical music.
Alev Lenz is a Turkish–German, Grammy-nominated record producer, singer-songwriter and composer.
"Say You Will" is a song by American rapper Kanye West, released as the opening track on his fourth studio album, 808s & Heartbreak (2008). The song contains vocals from the Kadockadee Kwire featuring Glenn Jordan, Phillip Ingram, Jim Gilstrap, Romeo Johnson, Kevin Dorsey, and Will Wheaton. It also includes background vocals from Mr Hudson and Tony Williams. The song was produced by West, who co-wrote it with Jeff Bhasker, Young Jeezy, Malik Yusef, Mr Hudson, and Consequence. In 2008, the song was recorded over a time period of 15 minutes. It is a melancholy hip hop and R&B ballad, which features synth-pop production.
David Michael Stith is a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who released his first album Heavy Ghost in 2009 on the Asthmatic Kitty label. He currently resides in Rochester, New York.
William Brittelle is a Grammy-winning Brooklyn-based composer, producer, and creator of hypertext and multimedia. He primarily works in the area of genre-fluid electro-acoustic music. Brittelle is co-founder/co-artistic director of New Amsterdam Records with composers Sarah Kirkland Snider and Judd Greenstein and house producer at Shahzad Ismaily's Figureight Recording studio. He has worked with artists across the stylistic spectrum, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, Roomful of Teeth, Justin Vernon, Bryce Dessner, Dirty Projectors, Son Lux, Oneohtrix Point Never, Duran Duran, Wye Oak, Kayne West, and others.
Ten Freedom Summers is a four-disc box set by American trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith. It was released on May 5, 2012, by Cuneiform Records. Smith wrote its compositions intermittently over the course of 34 years, beginning in 1977, before performing them live in November 2011 at the Colburn School's Zipper Hall in Los Angeles. He was accompanied by the nine-piece Southwest Chamber Music ensemble and his own jazz quartet, featuring drummers Pheeroan akLaff and Susie Ibarra, pianist Anthony Davis, and bassist John Lindberg.
Roomful of Teeth is an American vocal ensemble founded in 2009 by Brad Wells. Its stated mission is to "mine the expressive potential of the human voice".
Byron Schenkman is an American harpsichordist, pianist, music director, and educator. Schenkman has recorded over 40 CDs and has won several awards and accolades. He co-founded the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, and was its artistic director. Schenkman currently directs a baroque and classical chamber music concert series, Sound Salon, formerly Byron Schenkman & Friends, and performs as a recitalist and concert soloist. He also performs with chamber music ensembles, and is a teacher and lecturer.
Partita for 8 Voices is an a cappella composition by American composer Caroline Shaw. It was composed from 2009 through 2012 for the vocal group Roomful of Teeth and was released on their Grammy Award-winning self-titled debut album on October 30, 2012. The piece was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music on April 15, 2013, making Shaw the youngest recipient of the award. The work was not premiered in full until November 4, 2013, at (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York City.
Olga Bell is an American musician, music producer, composer, and singer-songwriter. She was born in Moscow, Russia, raised in Anchorage, Alaska and is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. A classically trained pianist and self-taught electronic music producer, she has worked in a wide range of genres, including classical, electronic pop, and Russian folk. Best known for Край (Krai), a tribute to her Russian heritage, and Diamonite, an album she produced with Gunnar Olsen and Jason Nazary under the moniker BELL, she has also played in Chairlift and Dirty Projectors and collaborated with Tom Vek under the name Nothankyou. In 2016, Bell released her third studio album Tempo.
Pieces of Winter Sky is a composition for chamber ensemble by the American composer Aaron Jay Kernis. The work was commissioned by the consortium Music Accord for the ensemble eighth blackbird. The piece was a runner-up for 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music, losing to Caroline Shaw's Partita for 8 Voices.
Estelí Gomez is an American singer. She is a multiple Grammy Award winning musician.
Anne Victoria Leilehua Lanzilotti, is a Kanaka Maoli composer, multimedia artist, curator, and scholar of contemporary classical music.
Gabriella Smith is an American composer from Berkeley, California.
The Dover Quartet is an American string quartet. It was formed at the Curtis Institute of Music in 2008 and its members are graduates of both the Curtis Institute of Music and the Rice University Shepherd School of Music. Its name is taken from the piece Dover Beach by Samuel Barber, who also studied at Curtis. The Dover Quartet was appointed to the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music as the Penelope P. Watkins ensemble-in-residence in 2020. Additionally, they hold a teaching residency at the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University.
Caleb Burhans is an American composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist in the contemporary/modern music scene. He has been commissioned by Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, and the Kronos Quartet. His works have been performed by ensembles such as the JACK Quartet, Roomful of Teeth, and eighth blackbird. He is a founding member of Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble Signal, and the Wordless Music Orchestra. He has worked with a diverse array of artists from Arcade Fire, The National, and Paul McCartney to Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson, George Crumb, and Steve Reich.
Kanye West has shared two new tracks on his Soundcloud: a new version of "Say You Will"... that features Pulitzer-winning musician Caroline Shaw
| Music |
|
|---|---|
| Related | |
Pulitzer Prize for Music (2011–2020) | ||
|---|---|---|
|  | |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
