Caroline Shaw

Caroline Adelaide Shaw is a New York-based musician. She is the youngest ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music, for her enigmatic composition Partita for 8 Voices. Her career defies categorization. She performs as a violin soloist, chamber musician, and as a vocalist in the Grammy-winning ensemble Roomful of Teeth. Recent commissions include works for Carnegie Hall, the Guggenheim Museum, mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter and The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra with Jonathan Biss. She also frequently collaborates with Kanye West. Currently a doctoral candidate at Princeton, Caroline also studied at Rice and Yale. Caroline loves the color yellow, otters, Beethoven opus 74, Mozart opera, the smell of rosemary and the sound of a janky mandolin.

What is your favorite piece of music to perform?

“The first time I played in a string quartet — when I was 10 or 11 maybe — I was hooked. Still am. My happy place is sitting second violin or viola, and the second movement of Mozart K.465 destroys me, in a good way.”

What was an important turning point in your musical career?

“A big turning point for me happened in the first couple of years out of school, when I started working as an accompanist for ballet and modern dance classes (on piano or violin). It changed both the way that I play and the way that I think about creating music. Dance began to infuse my process and music with more movement, immediacy, and humanity.”