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Composer Caroline Shaw emphatically announced her arrival onto the classical music scene when she became the youngest-ever winner of the Pulitzer Prize for composition. She has written for several high-profile artists and ensembles, plays violin and sings with several ensembles, and has helped produce albums by artists beyond the classical sphere. In 2024, Shaw teamed with Sō Percussion to issue the album Rectangles and Circumstance.

Shaw was born on August 1, 1982, in Greenville, North Carolina. She began playing violin at two years old, with her mother as her teacher, and she began composing at ten, though the violin was her focus. She attended Rice University for her bachelor's degree, followed by Yale University for her master's degree, both in violin performance. She went on for further studies at Princeton University in the Ph.D. program for composition. While still in the program at Princeton, Shaw's composition Partita for 8 Voices (2009-2011) earned the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for composition, making Shaw the youngest composer to earn the prize. Written for the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, of which Shaw is a member, it was part of the group's Grammy Award-winning self-titled debut release in 2012.

Among the performers she's been commissioned by are Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, The Crossing, and Anne Sofie von Otter. Shaw wrote her Cant voi l'aube (2016) for von Otter, and she was subsequently commissioned by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra to write another work for von Otter, which became Shaw's Three Songs set (2016-2018). Shaw has also composed film music, including the scores for To Keep the Light (2016) and Madeline's Madeline (2018). A 2019 release of her works for string quartet by the Attacca Quartet, Orange, won the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance. She performs on the violin with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble and regularly works with other groups, including Alarm Will Sound. Shaw has regularly teamed with the Sō Percussion group, whom she met and studied with at Princeton; together, they issued the album Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part in 2021. The following year, Shaw and the Attacca Quartet released the album Evergreen, containing five works for string quartet and two for voice and string quartet, with Shaw on vocals. In 2024, once more with Sō Percussion, she issued the album Rectangles and Circumstance on the Nonesuch label, the home of most of her recording activities.

Along with performing and composing, Shaw has worked with several prominent artists from the pop world, including Kanye West (The Life of Pablo and Ye), Nas (Nasir), and the National. She teaches at New York University, is a creative associate at the Juilliard School of Music, and has held residencies at Dumbarton Oaks and the Banff Centre, among others. ~ Keith Finke

Based in New York, Attacca Quartet concentrate on the works of 20th and 21st century composers without excluding earlier masters. Acclaimed for their mature interpretive ability after forming at Juilliard in the mid-2000s, their recordings have spanned Haydn (an original arrangement for 2015's Haydn: Seven Last Words) and composer premieres (Michael Ippolito's Songlines in 2017), as well as interpretations of contemporary electronic music (Real Life, 2021).

Violinists Amy Schroeder and Keiko Tokunaga, violist Luke Fleming, and cellist Andrew Yee founded Attacca Quartet as students at Juilliard School in 2003. Their professional debut took place at Carnegie Hall in 2007. The ensemble was the Juilliard Graduate Resident String Quartet from 2011 to 2013, and they made their recording debut in 2013 with Fellow Traveler: The Complete String Quartet Works of John Adams. Released by Azica Records, it included liner notes by the composer. Attacca Quartet then served as the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Quartet in Residence during the 2014-2015 season. Consisting of an original arrangement by Yee of Haydn's The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross, Haydn: Seven Last Words arrived in March 2015.

Fleming left the group and violist Nathan Schram was made an official member before the quartet looked to the 21st century for source material on 2017's Songlines. It marked the debut recording of composer Michael Ippolito. The following year, Steinway & Sons issued three works for strings (Attacca Quartet) and piano (Jeanne Golan) by 20th century composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg. The group next took on six string-quartet pieces by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw. Titled Orange, it was one of the first three releases issued by the partnership of New Amsterdam Records and Nonesuch in 2019; it won the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance.

Attacca Quartet signed to Sony Classical, and the first of two releases in 2021 was Real Life, consisting of pieces written by electronic and indie artists such as Flying Lotus, Louis Cole, Mid-Air Thief, and guest collaborators Squarepusher and Daedelus (TOKiMONSTA was also featured on one track). ~ Marcy Donelson