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Michael Jeffrey Shapiro
Michael Jeffrey Shapiro
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Michael Jeffrey Shapiro

Key Information

Michael Jeffrey Shapiro is an American composer, conductor, and author.

He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and studied at Columbia College, Columbia University, the Mannes College of Music and the Juilliard School.[1] He has worked with musicians and performers including Teresa Stratas, Janos Starker, Tim Fain, Matthew Kraemer, Marin Alsop, Sergiu Comissiona, Jerry Junkin, John Corigliano, Neil W. Levin, Kim Cattrall, Miah Persson, Clamma Dale, Katherine Ciesinski, Jerome Rose, Tomer Zvulun, Adam Abeshouse, Lara Downes, Hila Plitmann, Sangeeta Kaur, Grant Gershon, and Anita Darian.[1] He has conducted, composed for or worked with organizations including the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Jewish Committee, the Hawthorne String Quartet, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, the Los Angeles Opera, the Atlanta Opera, the Theater Trier, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, the United States Navy Band, the West Point Band, the Royal Canadian Air Force Band, the Dallas Winds, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, the Houston Symphony, and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.[1]

Shapiro was for sixteen years the music director and conductor of the Chappaqua Orchestra and has written a score for the 1931 film Frankenstein, which is in four versions for chamber orchestra, large orchestra, wind ensemble, and opera.[2][3][4]In 2024, he was nominated as a conductor for a Grammy Award for "Mythologies II" for "Best Classical Compendium."

Shapiro was music consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and has produced and performed in concerts by Jewish composers who had fled The Holocaust or had been murdered during it, and musicians imprisoned in Theresienstadt Ghetto.[5] His oratorio, VOICES, is a setting of poetry and songs of Sephardic victims of the Holocaust and was premiered at Central Synagogue, New York City by Deborah Simpkin King conducting Ember Choral Arts and the American Modern Ensemble. Two movements of the oratorio were later performed by Grant Gershon and the Los Angeles Master Chorale at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.[5]

His writing includes the book The Jewish 100, and research into klezmer music and into music in the plays of William Shakespeare.[6][7]

In 1984, Tim Page, writing in The New York Times, described Shapiro as[8]

a solid craftsman whose music, at its best, is marked by a direct expressivity that is often captivating. He has an ear for the English language, and three sets of terse, epigrammatic songs showed an unquestionable melodic gift. Mr. Shapiro writes in an idiom that might be characterized as gently dissonant, eschewing angular vocal leaps and bounds in favor of linear continuity.

Selected work

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Opera

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Film scores

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Symphonies

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Orchestra

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Band

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  • Roller Coaster for band
  • Widorama! for band premiered by the Dallas Winds conducted by Jerry Junkin
  • Frankenstein-The Overture for wind ensemble
  • Frankenstein-The Movie Score for wind ensemble
  • Bamboula for band
  • A Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 for narrator and band
  • Ol' Mississippi Sings the Blues for band, dedicated to Blind Mississippi Morris
  • In Every One for band
  • American Interludes for band
  • Tending for band (arranged by Michael Markowski), optional narration based on a poem by Cotton Mather
  • "Zoomies!" for band

Concerti

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  • Sinfonia Concertante for violin, violoncello, and orchestra
  • Concerto for guitar and strings
  • Concerto for harp and strings
  • Archangel Concerto for piano and orchestra, recorded by Steven Beck, pianist, BBC National Orchestra of Wales
  • At the Shore of the Sea, Concerto for violin and orchestra
  • In the Light of the Sun, Concerto for flute and orchestra, recorded by Stathis Karapanos, flautist, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
  • The World to Come, Concerto for violoncello and orchestra

Chamber

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  • String Quartet (Yiddish), recorded by Argus Quartet
  • Piano Quintet, recorded by Argus Quartet and Steven Beck, piano
  • Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano
  • Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano, recorded by Tim Fain, violin, and Steven Beck, piano
  • Sonata for Clarinet and Piano
  • Sextet for Piano and Winds
  • Shir for Flute and Piano
  • Yiddishkeit for Clarinet and Piano (alt. Violin and Piano or Cello and Piano)
  • Musical Chairs for brass quintet (French Horn, two trumpets, trombone)
  • American Realists for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano
  • Watching the Students Grow for two Flutes and Piano

Solo Instrumental

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  • Eliahu Hanavi Variations - for solo violoncello, recorded by Sato Knudsen (Boston Symphony Orchestra)
  • Peace Variations- for solo violin, recorded by Tim Fain
  • Kaddish-Berakhot-Nigun - for solo flute

Piano

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  • Five Preludes
  • Mysteries
  • Sonata No. 1
  • Sonata No. 2
  • Bitter(sweet) Waltzes, recorded by Steven Beck
  • Passages, recorded by Steven Beck
    • Creation
    • Babel
    • In the Wilderness
    • Hannah
    • A Light
    • Ruth
    • Naso
    • The Deluge
    • Hineni! (Here I Stand!)
  • American Interludes, dedicated to Lara Downes
    • Calming
    • Tending
    • In Every One

Choral

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  • Three Psalms (SSAA a capella)
  • Psalm 137 (SATB and organ)
  • Three Shakespeare Madrigals (SATB a capella)
  • There is that in me (Walt Whitman) (SATB and ensemble)
  • Spanish Medieval Lyrics (SSATB a capella)
  • Voices based on Sephardic poetry of the Holocaust (soprano or tenor soloist, SATB, and chamber ensemble), oratorio in eight movements, recorded by Daniel Mutlu, Ember Choral Arts, American Modern Ensemble, Deborah Simpkin King
  • In Paradisum (SATBariB and ensemble)
  • Cultivo una rosa blanca (Jose Marti) (SATB and piano)

Song cycles

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Recordings

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Recordings include:

  • Eliahu Hanavi Variations - Sato Knudsen ('cello) (Naxos Records, Milken Archive of Jewish American Music)
  • Variation - Peace Variations - Tim Fain (violin) and Eliahu Hanavi Variations - Sato Knudsen ('cello) (Paumanok Records)
  • Second Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Michael Shapiro, conductor (Paumanok Records)
  • Overture to Frankenstein-The Movie Score, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Michael Shapiro, conductor (Paumanok Records)
  • Second Sonata for Violin and Piano, Tim Fain (violin) and Steven Beck (piano) (Paumanok Records)
  • Archangel Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Steven Beck (piano), BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Michael Shapiro, conductor (Paumanok Records)
  • Roller Coaster, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Michael Shapiro, conductor (Paumanok Records)
  • Perlimplinito, Opera Sweet, A Lace Paper Valentine for orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Michael Shapiro, conductor (Paumanok Records)
  • Widorama!, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Michael Shapiro, conductor (Paumanok Records)
  • Michael's Songbook, Vol. I, Ariadne Greif, soprano, Michael Shapiro, piano (recordings of Canciones and Dublin Songs) (Paumanok Records)
  • Passages, American Interludes, and Bitter(Sweet) Waltzes, Steven Beck, piano (Paumanok Records)
  • Voices, Daniel Mutlu, tenor, Ember Choral Arts, American Modern Ensemble, Deborah Simpkin King, conductor (Paumanok Records)
  • Yiddish Quartet and Piano Quintet, Argus Quartet and Steven Beck, piano (Paumanok Records)
  • In the Light of the Sun, Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, Stathis Karapanos, flautist, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Shapiro, conductor (Paumanok Records)
  • Dublin Songs, poetry by James Joyce, and "Let Me Live", aria from the opera The Slave, based on the novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer, libretto by Hannah McDermott, Miah Persson, soprano, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Shapiro, conductor (Paumanok Records)

References

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Further reading

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