Whether it's composing for soprano Renée Fleming (Aurora Borealis, among others) or collaborating with rapper Kanye West (including a 2015 remix of “Say You Will”), Caroline Shaw's richly melodic music is always distinctive. Born in 1982 in North Carolina, Shaw studied music at Rice University and Yale, from which she holds an honorary doctorate. As a violinist and vocalist, Shaw can often be heard performing her own works. As a composer, she works across multiple genres, creating sound installations and film music alongside contemporary classical pieces. Her imaginative music written in collaboration with New York-based quartet Sō Percussion includes Narrow Sea, which draws on texts from The Sacred Harp, a collection of American hymns first published in 1844, and Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part, an improvisatory collection of songs with Shaw as the singer. Other works that feature the composer as performer include the violin concerto Lo and Partita for 8 Voices, which Shaw wrote for her ensemble Roomful of Teeth. The 24-minute piece for a cappella octet takes inspiration from Baroque dances, transforming well-worn 18th-century forms into harmonic, often wordless, textures. The engaging work—featured in Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé—won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013, making Shaw the youngest-ever recipient of the accolade.