Caroline Shaw

Kate Molleson talks to Pulitzer Prize winning composer, Caroline
Shaw


At the age of just 30, in 2013 American composer Caroline Shaw
made the headlines when she became the youngest person to win a
Pulitzer Prize for her vocal work "Partita for Eight Voices".
It's a mind blowing, joyous celebration of every sound and
technique the human voice can achieve. The unexpectedly gained
Pulitzer could have pigeon-holed Shaw's future career, as a
"composer", but central to her identity as a creator is the fact
that Shaw regards herself as musician. She's a violinist, a
vocalist, producer, and a composer and it's the sum of all these
parts that make up the creative impetus for her music. Blending
performance with composition, blurring the lines between
different musical genres, Shaw has avoided categorisation in the
multiplicity of her enthusiasms. She's worked with rappers Kanye
West and Nas, and soprano Renée Fleming, and mezzo-soprano Anne
Sofie von Otter. Her more than one hundred works encompass
classical works, film scores, vocal music, and performing and
working collaboratively she continues to engage in a diverse
range of multi-media projects.


Shaw's passion for music formed early. Born in North Carolina in
1982, Shaw was taught the Suzuki method of violin by her mother
from the age of 2. Her father, a specialist in respiratory
disease, was a keen amateur pianist. Shaw grew up in a culture of
community music-making, singing in the church choir and summer
camp. Formal studies followed at Rice in performance and Yale in
composition, after which she undertook a doctoral programme in
composition at Princeton.


Plan and Elevation (IV: The Orangery) And So Partita for 8
Singers (IV: Passacaglia) Gustave Le Gray Entr’acte (version for
String Orchestra) Valencia Limestone and Felt Punctum Boris
Kerner Thousandth Orange for violin, viola, cello, piano
Fleishman is in Trouble (Beef Lo Mein) And the Swallow Partita
for 8 Singers (I: Allemande) To the Hands (Seven Responses
project) (excerpt) Narrow Sea (excerpt) Its motion keeps “The
Listeners” (excerpt) Plan and Elevation (V: The Beech Tree) Three
Essays (III: Ruby) The Isle (excerpt) Taxidermy Blueprint for
String Quartet To the Sky Partita for 8 Singers (II: Sarabande)
Fleishman is in Trouble (excerpts) Ritornello 2.sq.2.j.a for
string quartet


Presented by Kate Molleson Produced by Johannah Smith for BBC
Audio Wales and West


For full track listings, including artist and recording details,
and to listen to the pieces featured in full (for 30 days after
broadcast) head to the series page for Caroline Shaw
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001trhs


And you can delve into the A-Z of all the composers we’ve
featured on Composer of the Week here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB77X3S0/composers-a-to-z