Born in Greenville, North Carolina, composer Caroline Shaw (b. 1982) has been called “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 is active as a violin soloist, chamber musician, and ensemble singer in the group, Roomful of Teeth. At the age of 30, Shaw became the youngest composer ever to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for her a cappella vocal work, Partita for 8 Voices, written for Roomful of Teeth.
Caroline Shaw’s Blueprint was composed for the Aizuri Quartet. The brief, single-movement work was premiered in April of 2016 at the Wolf Trap performing arts venue in Vienna, Virginia. Here is the composer’s program note:
The Aizuri Quartet’s name comes from “aizuri-e,” a style of Japanese woodblock printing that primarily uses a blue ink. In the 1820s, artists in Japan began to import a particular blue pigment known as “Prussian blue,” which was first synthesized by German paint producers in the early 18th century and later modified by others as an alternative to indigo. The story of aizuri-e is one of innovation, migration, transformation, craft, and beauty. Blueprint, composed for the incredible Aizuri Quartet, takes its title from this beautiful blue woodblock printing tradition as well as from that familiar standard architectural representation of a proposed structure: the blueprint. This piece began its life as a harmonic reduction — a kind of floor plan — of Beethoven’s string quartet Op. 18 No. 6. As a violinist and violist, I have played this piece many times, in performance and in joyous late-night reading sessions with musician friends. (One such memorable session included Aizuri’s marvelous cellist, Karen Ouzounian.) Chamber music is ultimately about conversation without words. We talk to each other with our dynamics and articulations, and we try to give voice to the composers whose music has inspired us to gather in the same room and play music. Blueprint is also a conversation — with Beethoven, with Haydn (his teacher and the “father” of the string quartet), and with the joys and malinconia of his Op. 18 No. 6.
Recordings
- Shaw: Blueprint, Attacca Quartet streaming link
Featured Image: photograph by Hancher Auditorium
This is a terrific composer.
My wife and I have loved and listened to the excellent Shaw/Attaca previous collaboration, “Orange”… also don’t miss her work with Roomful of Teeth.