Acclaimed American composer Caroline Shaw has announced her second album with Attacca Quartet. The new record, Evergreen, is out September 23 via Nonesuch. The LP opens with “Three Essays: First Essay (Nimrod),” which you can hear below.
Evergreen features five original works by Shaw, three of which (“Three Essays,” “Blueprint,” and “The Evergreen”) were written for string quartet. The other two pieces (“And So” and “Other Song”) were written for string quartet and voice. The album closes with “Cant voi l’aube,” an interpretation of a 12-century French poem by trouvère Gace Brulé.
In 2020, Shaw and Attacca Quartet won the Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for their collaborative debut Orange. Since releasing Orange, Shaw has worked with Sō Percussion on the 2021 albums Narrow Sea and Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part. In addition, she sang backing vocals on Rosalía’s Motomami track “Diablo.”
Violinists Amy Schroeder and Domenic Salerni, violist Nathan Schram, and cellist Andrew Yee comprise Attacca Quartet. Last year, the group released its Sony Classical debut Real Life.
Read more about Orange in Pitchfork’s feature “Great Records You May Have Missed: Spring 2019.”
Evergreen:
01 Three Essays: First Essay (Nimrod)
02 Three Essays: Second Essay (Echo)
03 Three Essays: Third Essay (Ruby)
04 And So
05 Blueprint
06 Other Song
07 The Evergreen: I. Moss
08 The Evergreen: II. Stem
09 The Evergreen: III. Water
10 The Evergreen: IV. Root
11 Cant voi l’aube