Here’s the Lo-down for Shaw and MAW
Violinist-composer-vocalist Caroline Shaw – who became the youngest Pulitzer Prize winner for composition at the age of 30 years ago for her vocal piece “Partita” – has guested at Music Academy of the West (MAW) every summer since 2016, first as a visiting artist, then a composer in residence, and now Mosher Guest Arts, which is MAW’s highest honor. So, we’re not sure what they’re going to do to entice her back again next year, other than maybe name a building after her. Although that may not be necessary after all, as Shaw professed a mutual affinity for Miraflores and the musicians. “It’s a great place to be musically,” she said earlier this week. “And the water and landscape is gorgeous. That doesn’t hurt at all.”
Last season, MAW commissioned and premiered a work she wrote for Kathy Winkler, her former violin teacher in college, “Just to thank her for what she’s given me,” Shaw said. “I think she enjoyed it. Maybe she didn’t and just didn’t tell me. I know we had a really big long hug afterward.”
That’s the sort of effortless charm Shaw exhibits both in conversation and her compositions, which local audiences will again experience when her residency shifts in to high gear this week, including Saturday night, July 7, when the Academy Festival Orchestra plays Lo, for violin and orchestra, at the Granada, with the composer herself serving as soloist. Shaw will also conduct a special masterclass featuring her works with Fellows this Friday, July 6, at 3:15 pm in Hahn Hall, and curate and perform, singing alongside Fellows, in a recital at Hahn on Monday evening.
Q. Let’s talk about “Lo”, your work that is getting its West Coast premiere at Saturday’s orchestra concert. How did it come about?
A. Originally, I wrote it just for the symphony but I realized wanted to be a part of it because I usually play alongside people I write for. So it became a concerto. But I’ve never written down the violin part, as I’m the only one who’s ever played it. So it still changes a bit based on the room or the audience, or the orchestra. Or even just something about the day, and I’ll tweak some things as I’m going along. There are little references to some of the violin concertos of the past that I’ve really loved – the Mendelssohn, Barber, even the Berg. I had a lot of fun writing it. It’s a tidy piece, just 17 minutes, so it’s actually a great way for orchestras to say hello and for me and to get a sense of them.
“Lo” is a few years old now. Not long for most, but you’ve been prolific. How do you relate to it now? Is it one of those things where you think you’ve grown a lot since then, or are you still completely thrilled?
Yeah, it was only three years ago, but I have written about 40 pieces since then. So for a while, I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep it in play. But then I performed it again recently with an orchestra in Leipzig, and I had this great feeling I finally felt comfortable in the role of both soloist and composer. I was looking around at the players and making eye contact with them while we were performing, just sharing the experience. That’s important to me. I do still like the piece and really enjoy playing it.
A symphony soloist concert is always a collaboration, but with you also as composer, how much leeway do you leave the conductor?
Yeah, usually it’s triangulated by a third person who is dead. Both of you want to work toward that original vision, but no one knows what Brahms meant with a certain phrase. When I’m up there as composer, I love letting the conductor design his own way, have his own choices and decisions about the music. I’m happy to see what someone else does. I don’t meddle too much. But it is nice to demonstrate to the string players concepts and phrases that are hard to get across otherwise. And for the players to see the person who wrote the music actually next to them shaping it is an unusual experience. I hope they find it fun here at MAW too. (For the record, Larry Rachleff earlier responded that “She’s the boss! No one knows the piece better than she does.”)
(Conductor) Larry Rachleff reminded me that he was at Shepherd School when you were studying there. Were you close?
Oh, yeah. Between Mr. Rachleff and Ms. Winkler, I think the two of them together have had a huge impact on my life as a musician. He’s a really wonderful person and musician, and incredibly inspiring as a teacher.
So once again, you’re working with one of your former mentors.
Oh, my gosh, that’s right. You’re making me really nervous. My stomach just dropped. But I’m still excited, and mostly I feel so lucky to get to do this with him and the orchestra. Being able to perform with someone who has been so important is yet again another deeply meaningful musical experience.
Working with the Fellows in the masterclass of your music is a little less intimidating, right?
I learn a lot when I coach students on my music. I get to ask them question about how they’re approaching the music as a way of understanding it even better myself. Any time I hear someone play my music, I learn something about the piece itself that I might not have thought about myself. But learning about their entry way into the music is always going to be different than mine. There’s a lot of information in what they latch on to. The other thing is that I’m always trying to tell the player how much more freedom they have with the music than they might think. Composers are supposed to write things down as much as possible, but it’s hard to convey the sense of freedom I want them to have. That’s especially true with young musicians who have a greater loyalty to what’s on the page versus when you’re older and start to be more flexible. I always think I have to say, “Don’t worry about me, make the piece your own.”
Some of those works will be on your recital program on Monday night.
Yes, including my new piano quartet Thousandth Orange, which I just wrote two months ago. It’s still in an early stage, so we can figure out what it needs to be. (The title) came from thinking about “Valencia”, which I wrote about the beauty of an orange. This new piece starts with a four-chord pattern than keeps coming back, and I had this thought that the one thousandth orange you eat is still just as beautiful as the first one. That’s the feeling I wanted. I’ll also be singing a few songs from “By & By” with a string quartet. It was composed using old lyrics from hymns and bluegrass and folk songs set in an entirely different way, with a more modernist feel.
You’re so prolific, I just started hearing that old TV commercial for the Army where they do all sorts of activities and at the end the announcer says “We get more done before 8 am than most people do all day.” So, what are you writing on now?
Just before you called, I was working on the third essay of three for the Caladore Quartet that they’re performing in London later this month. Also earlier it was a piece for the Vail Dance Festival, for the choreographer Justin Peck, and a piano concert for Jonathan Biss that’s coming up soon. I haven’t really counted how many things I’ve done this past year, but it was nonstop. I’m super-lucky to get to do it, but looking forward to a break in September.
I feel like I should ask about your collaborations with Kanye, including his brand-new album That seems so far afield. Where is that you connect?
We’ve worked together on and off for almost three years. It’s an ongoing, always surprising collaboration. The more you learn, the more you realize what you don’t know. He’s such a fascinating producer in the way he combines and curates different samples and sounds. He’s also very curious and always listening to new things. Somehow we just get each other.
Shaw’s Lo is sandwiched between two richly melodic works that both have birthday connections. Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, being performed to mark the composer’s centennial year, is, in Rachleff’s words, “a virtuoso work for the orchestra and a combination of all of the genres he worked in. It’s one of America’s most inspired works of musical theater, and a great concert piece, the work of a genius.” Meanwhile, Sibelius’s Symphony No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 62, which closes the concert also excites Rachleff, who noted that the piece was commissioned by the . Finnish government to honor his own 60th birthday. “It’s a heroic, rich, romantic work that is inventive and full of great influences of the life of the composer in and with nature.”
This Week at MAW
Thursday, July 5: Pianist Jeremy Denk, winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, the Avery Fisher Prize, and Musical America’s Instrumentalist of the Year award, performs in recital at Hahn Hall. A former Mosher Guest Artist now on the MAW faculty, Denk will play works by Mozart, Prokofiev, Beethoven, and Schumann is the solo concert (7:30 pm; sold out).
Friday, July 6: Pack the basket, grab a coat, and head to Hahn Hall for the weekly Picnic Concert with the Fellows playing chamber music all evening. And yes, just like last week, there are still tickets remaining for what was once a long sold-out series (7:30 pm; $40).
Tuesday: July 8: Tonight’s Festival Artists Series concert at the Lobero digs right into the world premiere of composer-in-residence Timothy Higgins “Nursery Crimes”, a three-part piece for winds, brass, double bass, and soprano that are his settings for poems by his uncle, Warren Wolfson, who is a lawyer and judge, as well as a published poet. French composer Guillaume Connesson’s 1998 Sextuor for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, double bass, and piano is next, followed by one of the perennials of the chamber music canon, Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet (7:30 pm; $46).
Wednesday, July 9: The vocal masterclass with stage director James Darrah, who just curated the astoundingly inventive “Opera Takeover” of the MAW campus paired with Bernstein’s “Trouble in Tahiti” for this year’s OperaFest (more on that next week), is a rare chance for the vocalists to work on arts songs and more with the director, who will also helm this year’s fully staged production of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” in early August (3:15 pm; Hahn Hall; $10).
