Ringdown

We welcomed Ringdown as Visting Artists at the studio. The duo, made up of composer-musicians Caroline Shaw and Danni Lee Parpan, create cinematic electro-pop that draws equally from contemporary classical music and folk songwriting. Their collaboration brings together Shaw’s boundary-pushing compositional practice and Parpan’s direct lyricism, resulting in music that explores connection, vulnerability and joy.
Caroline Shaw is a Pulitzer Prize and multiple Grammy Award-winning composer whose work spans concert music, film and collaboration. Her credits include contributions to Beyoncé’s Homecoming and Ken Burns’ Leonardo da Vinci. Danni Lee Parpan is a singer-songwriter and vocalist known for her emotionally driven writing and inventive approach to instrumentation. Together as Ringdown, they have performed at venues and festivals including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Big Ears, SXSW, The Whitney and the Thüringer Bach Festival. Their debut album, Lady on the Bike, was released on Nonesuch Records in May 2025.
During their time at Studio Richter Mahr, Ringdown worked on “a piece unlike any music we’ve released in the past.” Working with Fiona Cruickshank , they experienced for the first time a studio environment with “only feminine energy in the room”, something they described as both powerful and beautiful. Over two days, they created a two-part work that is “not only a lullaby but also a battle cry”: a meditation on patience and an invitation to feel the rage surrounding the “absolute egregious behaviour” of those in power.