Ashley Fetters is impressed with this year’s avant garde winner of the Pulitzer Prize for music, Caroline Shaw’s Partita for 8 Voices. J. Bryan Lowder walks through it:
The singers begin by speaking and then layering phrases like “to the side” and “through the middle and” while also counting dance beats (“5, 6, 7, 8”), erupting into lively, Appalachian-tinged singing only after the spoken lines have reached maximum saturation. … In the meantime, we hear the thick, crunchy, punchy chord-flashes that Shaw favors in the sarabande, punctuated by a vocal sound akin to a slowed-down udu drum. And in the best movement, the courante, Shaw creates a 9-minute evocation of angel sex, complete with strained, breathy “ohs” and “ahs,” a gorgeously orgasmic hymn section followed by a quick coda containing sighs of satisfaction.
The Dish 