Six years ago, fifty bucks and an outside-the-box choir helped Caroline Shaw become the youngest person to win the Pulitzer Prize for music. Here's a look at some of what she's been doing more recently.
It鈥檚 now one of the greatest stories in classical music. It was 2013, and Shaw 鈥� a violinist and singer, as well as a composer 鈥� was just entering Princeton University鈥檚 graduate program in music composition when she submitted the score for her Partita for 8 Voices, accompanied by a recording of the work by the a cappella vocal group Roomful of Teeth, for consideration for the Pulitzer Prize.
The entry fee was only $50, practically a steal.
鈥淚 thought, I would love to get this group, Roomful of Teeth, and this piece in the ears of more people, because we were unknown. And it seemed like a relatively inexpensive way to do it,鈥� Shaw said in a 2017 interview, which you can listen to in two parts:
Shaw鈥檚 historic Pulitzer win made her and Roomful of Teeth overnight successes. Shaw鈥檚 Partita for 8 Voices was also suddenly on the map, opening up whole new vistas of sound and language in a cappella vocal music.
Roomful of Teeth performing Caroline Shaw鈥檚 Pulitzer Prize-winning Partita for 8 Voices:
Since 2013, Shaw has continued to roll out new musical works of astonishing originality. Take, for instance, the string quartet works on Orange 鈥� the first full-length recording featuring Shaw鈥檚 music 鈥� performed by the Attacca Quartet.
There is something that Shaw has called 鈥渂eautiful and ritualistic鈥� about working in the venerable string quartet genre, a genre in which some of the world鈥檚 great composers 鈥� Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Bartok, Shostakovich 鈥� wrote some of their most substantial works. Shaw鈥檚 contributions to the string quartet follow in the footsteps of the genre鈥檚 true innovators.
Shaw's offbeat wit arrives with the recording鈥檚 first track, 贰苍迟谤鈥檃肠迟别, which comes not in between works, but instead at the beginning of the list of tracks, as though the recording itself were the second (or third or fourth) act of some opera-in-progress.
The Attacca Quartet plays Caroline Shaw鈥檚 贰苍迟谤鈥檃肠迟别:
Shaw鈥檚 writing for string quartet is masterful. The bold harmonic shifts are ideally suited to the instruments' natural resonance. Gliding between the traditional sounds of the instruments and moments of voiceless scratchiness is the kind of unexpected delight that, ironically, has come to be expected of Shaw鈥檚 music.
Then there is The Cutting Garden, the third track on Orange, and the second movement of Shaw鈥檚 Plan & Elevation: The Grounds of Dumbarton Oaks. Shaw was inspired to compose Plan & Elevation while serving as the inaugural music fellow at the fabled Dumbarton Oaks estate. In The Cutting Garden, Shaw cleverly 鈥済athers鈥� fragments from string quartets by Ravel, Mozart and herself into a vase of musical 鈥渃uttings,鈥� as though reciting lines of famous poems in order to internalize the talents of their authors.
The Attacca Quartet plays The Cutting Garden by Caroline Shaw:
A classica