Michael Jeffrey Shapiro

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. He has worked with musicians and performers including Teresa Stratas, Janos Starker, Marin Alsop, Sergiu Comissiona, Jerry Junkin, John Corigliano, Kim Cattrall, Clamma Dale, Hila Plitmann, Sangeeta Kaur, Grant Gershon, and Anita Darian. 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 Los Angeles Opera, the Atlanta Opera, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, the United States Navy Band, the West Point Band, the Dallas Winds, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra.

Shapiro has been the music director and conductor of the Chappaqua Orchestra. He has written a score for the 1931 film Frankenstein.

Shapiro was music consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He has put on concerts by Jewish composers who had fled The Holocaust or had been murdered during it, and musicians imprisoned in Theresienstadt Ghetto. He has composed an oratorio, VOICES, for those who were murdered in the Holocaust.

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

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

"a solid, conservative 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, though uneven, 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."

Opera

 * The Love of Don Perlimplin and Belisa in the Garden, libretto by Michael Shapiro based on the play by Federico García Lorca - a one-act opera written in 1984
 * Frankenstein-The Movie Opera, soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, bass, and chamber orchestra (text the Latin Requiem Mass)
 * ''The Slave, libretto by Hannah McDermott, based on the novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer

Film scores

 * American Jewish Committee documentary
 * Distant Relatives - Israel Broadcasting Authority
 * Frankenstein-The Movie Score - four versions for fifteen player ensemble, full orchestra, wind ensemble, choral and operatic forces

Symphonies

 * Symphony Pomes Penyeach based on the poems of James Joyce
 * Second Symphony, recorded by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Orchestra

 * A Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 for narrator and orchestra
 * Lyric Variations for chamber orchestra
 * like the roaring sea for orchestra
 * Dublin Songs for soprano and orchestra
 * Frankenstein-The Overture, recorded by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
 * Frankenstein-The Movie Score (two orchestral versions - chamber ensemble (15 players) and full orchestra)
 * The Headless Horseman for narrator and orchestra
 * Perlimplinito, Opera Sweet, a lace paper valentine for orchestra, recorded by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
 * Widorama! for orchestra, recorded by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
 * Roller Coaster for orchestra, recorded by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales
 * The Babbling Orchestra for piccolo solo,narrator and orchestra

Band

 * Roller Coaster for band
 * Widorama! for band
 * 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

Concerti

 * Sinfonia Concertante for violin, violoncello, and orchestra
 * Concerto for guitar and strings
 * Concerto for harp and strings
 * Archangel Concerto for piano and orchestra
 * At the Shore of the Sea, Concerto for violin and orchestra
 * In the Light of the Sun, Concerto for flute and orchestra

Chamber

 * 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

 * 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

 * 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

 * 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

 * Canciones, poetry by Federico García Lorca, recorded by Ariadne Greif
 * Dublin Songs, poetry by James Joyce, recorded by Ariadne Greif
 * Songs for American Poets, poetry by Walt Whitman, Teton Sioux, Carl Sandburg
 * Wordsworth Songs, poetry by William Wordsworth
 * Erotic Songs, poetry by Erica Jong and Denise Levertov
 * A Child's Garden, poetry by Robert Louis Stevenson (from A Child's Garden of Verses)
 * Whitman Songs, poetry by Walt Whitman

Recordings
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, 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)