Caroline Shaw

Caroline Shaw is an American composer, vocalist, violinist, and producer known for contemporary classical and cross-genre work. She received the Pulitzer Prize in Music for Partita for 8 Voices and has collaborated with ensembles and artists including Roomful of Teeth, Sō Percussion, Attacca Quartet, Rosalía, Yo-Yo Ma, Nas, and Kanye West.

Music’s Future Is Framed as Conversation, Not Prediction

At the Aspen Ideas Festival, Damian Woetzel, Caroline Shaw and Charles Yang turned a question about the sound of 2276 into an argument about what music should preserve. Rather than forecast future genres or technologies, they treated music as a continuing exchange among inherited forms, bodily practice and responsive listening. Through discussion and performance, Shaw and Yang made the case that the future worth hoping for is not novelty for its own sake, but musical conversation marked by curiosity, attention and mutual respect.

The Aspen InstituteJun 30, 202615 min read