Caroline Adelaide Shaw | M u s i c k

ritornello

Administrator — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 00:15:15 +0000

Recently got back from Chicago, where I spent two weeks in the loft of High Concept Laboratories in an operaSHOP residency (with fellow composer Elliot Cole and Opera Cabal mastermind Majel Connery). Long story short, I made a something in 10 days — an 18-minute piece called Ritornello, with film projections (stop motion animation alternating with ambient aerial shots), music with viola and voice, and a whimsical non-sequitur dance sequence (courtesy of choreographer Katelyn Halpern). Could use a bit more trimming and baking (will do down the road), but it came out alright in the end (two performances, at HCL and at the U of Chicago). Here is a brief program note from the workshop.

The trailer :

Some photos :
[more stills at LaraKastner.com]

Bliss

Administrator — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 07:03:24 +0000

This is one of the most beautiful things ever made. (Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro – finale) . Ragnar Kjartansson (Icelandic artist) transformed this moment into a rosary bead. Performa Festival 2011 – New York.

For twelve hours (a couple weeks ago — Nov19) this scene (up to 2’31″) was performed thoroughly staged with a small orchestra (I played violin). (for more, gaggle something like “performa festival ragnar 2011″) Over and over, and over, and o v e r a n d o v e r and o v e r a n d o v e r a n d over a n d over a n d o v e r and again, and again, resetting each time with a lush, petitional D dominant chord. And every so often, stagehands dressed in 18C garb stopped by the pit to offer grapes and brussels sprouts and brrbon and all manner of lovely things. I know it hasn’t been nearly long enough for me to realize the effect of that experience on my general personhood. But. For the [short-term record]. It was, and still is, a beautiful thing. I am forever changed. I’ll leave it there.

Cut to one week later. I got to spend Thanksgiving at my grandmother’s in eastern North Carolina, and that weekend my family canoed (through some tangly muck) to a hidden lake. b l i s s . . . but cold . . . We camped out (with mosquitoes at 5pm and frost on the tent at 5am) and then rowed back to civilization the next day via the Albemarle Sound. We docked at a makeshift peninsula, near some fields –unfortunately, also a place some people dump their trash and furniture. But — some of those people have GREAT VINYL COLLECTIONS. My sister and I (and our dog) rummaged through some of this stuff and found a bag containing a nice collection of classical albums. Including a vintage Deutches Grammaphon record set of The Marriage of Figaro (Fischer-Dieskau/Vogel/Mathis). Yes. The world is an absurd and magical situation.

And so they drove across the country in a dark van.

Administrator — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 23:10:58 +0000

Aw… That happened. Filmed out the window of a black Mercedes tour van, driving from Minneapolis to Seattle. A ladybug came along for the ride, just keeping slow time while the highway whipped past. His own little winged victory.

Just got back from a little tour this past month. Thirteen shows in thirteen cities, with A Winged Victory for the Sullen & ACME. And — I totally ridiculously enjoyed every show. Pulling the right sound, feeling the grain of the bow, chewing on salty F-sharps for a long, long time… Love this music. I’ve been following the kranky records catalogue since 2007, when I found myself at a Dead Texan show in Brussels after reading a blurb in La Libre. Pretty random actually. But somehow that music just hit me in the right way at the right time.

Some drawings and photos from the voyage:

Someone’s bootleg of the last thing we played at our last show, at the Satellite in LA. (A special rendition of Gavin Bryars’ “Jesus Blood”):

A beautiful short docu film featuring Adam Wiltzie and Montgomery Knott:

And the whole tour was blessed by the presence of Ken Camden and Tom Meluch (Benoît Pioulard), who opened every show. Here’s some live audio of Ken’s set from our Lincoln Hall show in Chicago; and Tom’s moment of respite during our day off in Portland:

the acoustic path

Administrator — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 04:57:45 +0000

It’s open! The ground is singing up in Massachusetts. Forever and ever. Take a weekend and visit sometime…

{ by the way > Apologies for recent neglect in posting. It’s been a bit crazy all summer, and especially the last month. Many rich things with wonderful people. (Big hugs to all.) }

The most recent event in my little world was the opening of Jane Philbrick’s “The Expanded Field” — an industrial garden project at Mass MoCA (the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, for short). The piece takes its name from this essay by Rosalind Krauss. Jane is a brilliant, lovely, fearless artist and human being, and it was a total pleasure to work with her on this project. We collaborated to create an acoustic path that will invite visitors exiting the [planned] Anselm Kiefer exhibit hall to amble through the grasses and experience the new growth among the remnants of an industrial past. With Jane’s vision in mind, I designed musical fragments which were then recorded by Roomful of Teeth in August and later shaped into a 12-channel piece that is now a permanent installation outside the museum. { The Acoustic Path by Caroline Shaw & Jane Philbrick, featuring Roomful of Teeth }

Bob Bielecki engineered the burial of nine speakers, about an inch underground, and three embedded in a stone wall. Below are a few photos from the installation process and from the opening last Saturday. (I unfortunately was unable to attend but will be taking a quiet trip up there by myself very soon…)

for alicia & andrew

Administrator — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:28:05 +0000

This has been the summer of late Beethoven 4tets. They’re a staple year-round, and they really are the most amazing creatures ever designed. But there was just something about driving through the hills last month to the sound of Op. 132′s “Heilige dankgesang” (mixed with the hum of my VW jetta)… I’ve been living in 132, 130, and 131 (and an occasional throwback to 74 – mostly for that mindblowing finish to the first mvt) for weeks.

Last week Alicia Doudna and her fiancé Andrew were in a very serious car accident in Michigan. Alicia is a beautiful violinist. She and I played chamber music at Kneisel Hall a while back, and I remember her contagiously fun spirit, addiction to chapstick, and love of the third movement of opus 132. They’re both still unconscious, but music has been played in the intensive care unit every day (including live Bach cello suites — go Mary Ann!). For the past week many of us who know Alicia have been playing and listening to music that reminds us of her.

Alicia, this is for you! (excerpt of Beethoven op132/III — the best part) Rest well, and recover soon.

Beethoven Op 132 – Heilige dankgesang – Orion Quartet

daffodils in chelsea

Administrator — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 23:30:11 +0000

On my way to rehearsal this afternoon (singing Gavin Bryars at the Guggenheim tomorrow night), I walked past these daffodils. I’m strangely drawn to bright yellow objects. It’s like salt and vinegar, or the sound of a delicately EQ’d Rhodes… Something sensorily awesome about the color yellow.

While black-eyed susans are my all-time favorite flowers, daffodils are somewhere in my top ten. One of the most amazing things about them is their spooky heliophilia, how they all turn one direction for maximum sunlight. Seeing that on the sidewalk in New York seems particularly poignant. There was just something about this scene of daffodils all turned in the same direction, glancing over the iron fence at the traffic on 10th avenue. Like cows in a Gary Larson cartoon, gazing at the country road with a posture and attitude that’s uncannily human.

Also, I know one shouldn’t read during rehearsal… But given the ample tacet time in Bryars’ ambient “Sinking of the Titanic”, I continued my little journey through Kierkegaard’s “Fear and Trembling” — suggested by a friend for consideration for an upcoming (tbd!) music/theater project. Reading that with a live surround-sound soundtrack is pretty spectacular…

concerts À EMPORTER

Administrator — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 03:50:11 +0000

Just a few bits from LA BLOGOTHEQUE’s wonderful series of CONCERTS À EMPORTER (capitalization is theirs). I love these short films (by Vincent Moon/Mathieu Saura) and have been following them for a little while. Basic premise is to take a cool musician/band outside or in somebody’s apartment (or cathedral) and see what happens. And just notice things with the camera… Also, here’s Esperanza Spalding’s take on William Blake’s “The Fly” (not filmed by Moon). Blogotheque, please contact Ms. Spalding’s people. I want to see that happen in a chrome-wrapped diner (with a fly or two) somewhere on route 1, or maybe in Paris.

[clockwise from top-left: Annie Clark, Moriarty, Esperanza Spalding, Kong Nay] Click the little “expand” icon on each one to view full-screen.

toothyear’d’s

Administrator — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 07:27:58 +0000

It’s over a month ago, which in interweb news is an eonothem. But today’s release of the mind-blowingly maquillé’d musick video from Tune-Yards (below) was a good reminder to post some photos and the Brooklyn Vegan review from the Roomful of Teeth concert [with Caleb Burhans, Bill Brittelle, and said wildly inspiring yard of Tunes, on Feb 19 in Merkin, as part of Ecstatic].

Some photos here (click for full-size)

and a full album of David Andrako’s beautiful photography from the concert

Merrill (tUnE-yArDs) [apostrophe S] video of “Bizness”:
dance. pyramid. yes.
and butoh?

Brooklyn Vegan review and a bootleggy video of “Hatari” from the show:

Bailey House PSA

Administrator — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 18:01:28 +0000

Nice project for Neon Lighthouse productions last month — music for their PSA video for the Bailey House, an organization providing stable living situations for people living with HIV and AIDS in New York. I wrote and mixed some bits of musick for the Franklin Quartet:

Musick for 18+

Administrator — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 05:08:07 +0000

This is what it looks like to record Music for 18. Last week, from my “Voice 2″ chair behind the clarinets. Focused fun. with Signal — Troy, NY — March 2011

. . .

And this is what it sounds like (er, rehearsal via iphone recorder):

Thanks to all involved in Signal for a rich week with this epic piece of music. I’ll never forget the performance at EMPAC Saturday night — something very special. Then we did two shows at LPR on Sunday, with Steve himself sliding things up and down at the soundboard. Here he is, saying a few words about the work: