Caroline Shaw is a musician who moves among roles, genres, and mediums, trying to imagine a world of sound that has never been heard before but has always existed. She works often in collaboration with others, as producer, composer, violinist, and vocalist. Caroline is the recipient of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music, several Grammy awards, an honorary doctorate from Yale, and a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. This year’s projects include the score to Fleishman Is in Trouble (FX/Hulu), vocal work with Rosalía (Motomami), the score to Josephine Decker’s The Sky Is Everywhere (A24/Apple), music for the National Theatre’s production of The Crucible (dir. Lyndsey Turner), Justin Peck’s Partita with New York City Ballet, a new stage work LIFE (Gandini Juggling/Merce Cunningham Trust), the premiere of Microfictions Vol. 3 for the New York Philharmonic and Roomful of Teeth, a live orchestral score co-composed with Andrew Yee for Wu Tsang’s silent film Moby Dick, two albums on Nonesuch (Evergreen and The Blue Hour), the score for Helen Simoneau’s dance work Delicate Power, tours of Graveyards & Gardens (co-created immersive theatrical work with Vanessa Goodman), and tours with Sō Percussion featuring songs from Let The Soil Play Its Simple Part (Nonesuch), amid occasional chamber music appearances as violist (Chamber Music Society of Minnesota, La Jolla Music Society). Caroline has written over 100 works in the last decade, for Anne Sofie von Otter, Davóne Tines, Yo-Yo Ma, Renée Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, LA Phil, Philharmonia Baroque, Seattle Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Aizuri Quartet, The Crossing, Dover Quartet, Calidore Quartet, Brooklyn Rider, Miro Quartet, I Giardini, Ars Nova Copenhagen, Ariadne Greif, Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Britt Festival, and the Vail Dance Festival. She has contributed production to albums by Rosalía, Woodkid, and Nas. Her work as vocalist or composer has appeared in several films, TV series, and podcasts, including The Humans, Bombshell, Yellowjackets, Maid, Dark, Beyonce’s Homecoming, Tár, Dolly Parton’s America, and More Perfect. Her favorite color is yellow, and her favorite smell is rosemary. 

Ringdown—featuring composer-musicians Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee Parpan—is an “ecstatically blissful” (Night After Night) and “irresistible” (Feast of Music) cinematic electro-pop duo creating music that floats up from the dusty record bin between Brahms and Brandi Carlile, and centers around joy, human connection, and trying to inspire people to feel more love (and maybe even reach out to a crush). 

The duo was drawn to each other through mutual admiration of each other's work; Shaw has won a Pulitzer Prize and several Grammy Awards for her boundary-breaking compositions and contributed music to films including Beyoncé’s Homecoming and the Ken Burns documentary Leonardo da Vinci, and Parpan is a dynamic vocalist and folk-pop singer-songwriter who writes emotionally stirring lyrics and relishes in challenging how instruments are “supposed” to be played. Together as Ringdown, they forge a new realm that unlocks ways to write, sing, and perform that they can only access with each other, encouraging each to loosen their grip on the music they have created before and fully revel in the intricate pop music they have both always loved. Their songs are built on late nights of countless back-and-forths on tables covered in instruments and wires, sonically merging Shaw’s pull toward the abstract with Parpan’s directness, perhaps with a playlist of Sylvan Esso, Glasser, Robyn, James Blake, and The Blow in the background. The result is music that invites deep listening but also welcomes you to sing along, and—they hope—helps people feel everything they have been too afraid to feel.  

As for the band’s name: A ringdown is the theorized sound two black holes make in the final microseconds when they merge, a sub-bass whoosh and glide that suggest the world’s biggest synthesizer, sighing in contentment. This might also describe how Ringdown’s music sounds. Or at least how it feels to the band.  

Ringdown releases its Nonesuch Records debut, Lady on the Bike, on May 9, 2025, and has performed across the US and abroad at Big Ears, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Public Records, SXSW, Thuringia Bach Festival, and more. The duo, who are partners on and off the stage, split their time between Portland, OR and New York, NY. Learn more at ringdownmusic.com and follow them on what they are proud to share is “their friend Virginia’s favorite Instagram account” at @ringdownmusic.