Features | November 21, 2024

A Conversation with Caroline Shaw

Caroline Shaw is a musician who moves among roles, genres, and mediums, trying to imagine a world of sound that has never been heard before but has always existed. She works often in collaboration with others, as producer, composer, violinist, and vocalist. Caroline is the recipient of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music, several Grammy awards, an honorary doctorate from Yale, and a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. This year’s projects include the score to Fleishman is in Trouble (FX/Hulu); vocal work with Rosalía (Motomami); the score to Josephine Decker’s The Sky Is Everywhere (A24/Apple); music for the National Theatre’s production of The Crucible (dir. Lyndsey Turner); Justin Peck’s Partita with NY City Ballet; a new stage work LIFE (Gandini Juggling/Merce Cunningham Trust); the premiere of “Microfictions Vol. 3” for NY Philharmonic and Roomful of Teeth; a live orchestral score for Wu Tsang’s silent film Moby Dick, co-composed with Andrew Yee; two albums on Nonesuch (Evergreen and The Blue Hour), the score for Helen Simoneau’s dance work Delicate Power; tours of Graveyards & Gardens (co-created immersive theatrical work with Vanessa Goodman); and tours with Sō Percussion, featuring songs from Let The Soil Play Its Simple Part (Nonesuch), amid occasional chamber music appearances as violist (Chamber Music Society of Minnesota, La Jolla Music Society). Caroline has written over 100 works in the last decade, for Anne Sofie von Otter, Davóne Tines, Yo Yo Ma, Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, LA Phil, Philharmonia Baroque, Seattle Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Aizuri Quartet, The Crossing, Dover Quartet, Calidore Quartet, Brooklyn Rider, Miro Quartet, I Giardini, Ars Nova Copenhagen, Ariadne Greif, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Britt Festival, and the Vail Dance Festival. She has contributed production to albums by Rosalía, Woodkid, and Nas. Her work as vocalist or composer has appeared in several films, TV series, and podcasts, including The Humans, Bombshell, Yellowjackets, Maid, Dark, Beyoncé’s Homecoming, Tár, Dolly Parton’s America, and More Perfect. Her favorite color is yellow, and her favorite smell is rosemary. 

Kylan Rice: To begin, how would you describe your music to someone who hasn’t heard it? Some of our readers will encounter this interview before they listen to your work, and I wonder how you’d prepare them for the experience.  

Caroline Shaw: I can answer that question by saying what I love about music and what I love about making it. It’s my way of processing the world around me. In music I can paint and create and design and tell a story of my own without words. It’s colorful and detailed, but the door is open, and hopefully it feels like an intimate conversation, with all its ups and downs. My partner says that my music is a gateway to therapy.