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for a speci c composition, the Pulit-
zer Prize for Music has been a kind of
career-achievement award for much
of its -year history. Winners have
typically been composers who have
already achieved considerable fame
like Charles Ives and Aaron Cop-
land or, more recently, Jennifer Hig-
don and Steve Reich.
¶
But in
,
Caroline Shaw came out of seeming-
ly nowhere and astonished the clas-
sical world when she was announced
as that year’s Pulitzer winner—the
youngest ever at —for her Partita
for Eight Voices. Even the then–doc-
toral student at Princeton University
was surprised by the honor. “Yeah, it
was a total shock to me and, I think,
to my friends and my family,” she
says. “ ere were a lot of people who
didn’t know that I wrote music.”
Caroline Shaw’s
bespoke music
pulls her to
ambitious
projects
Full-
Voice
PORTRAITS BY KAIT MORENO
RAVINIA MAGAZINE | AUGUST 20 – SE3TEM%ER 2, 2018
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