I wondered how much of a Bio the Wikipedia encyclopedia had on friend Alex Shapiro, and actually it held a bunch of cool data. So for those of you who wonder about her, up there on San Juan Island, and have not yet gone to one of her web sites, my favorite being NOTES FROM THE KELP, to listen to some of her music, and enjoy both her photography and comments, then get off your cyber posteriors and check her out.
Alex Shapiro
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alex Shapiro (born January 11, 1962 in New York City) composes acoustic and electroacoustic chamber music favoring combinations of modal harmonies with chromatic ones, and often emphasizing strong pulse and rhythm.
Published by Activist Music, her works appear on artists’ CDs for the Cambria Master Recordings, Innova Recordings, Crystal Records, Centaur Records, DC Records, and Oehms Classics labels. Educated at The Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music as a student of Ursula Mamlok and John Corigliano, Ms. Shapiro has received honors and awards including those from The American Music Center, ASCAP, the American Composers Forum, Mu Phi Epsilon, the California Arts Council and the MacDowell Colony.
Performance highlights include Ms. Shapiro's Sonata for Piano at the Beijing Modern Music Festival in China, For My Father from her Piano Suite No. 1: The Resonance of Childhood on the MoMA of New York series The American Season in Berlin, Desert Tide premiered at the Stellenbosch New Music and Art Festival in South Africa, Trio for Clarinet, Violin and Piano at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. and At the Abyss performed at Carnegie Hall in New York. Other notable works in her catalog include Deep, a work for contrabassoon and electronics; a flute quartet, Bioplasm; and a string quintet, Current Events.
Ms. Shapiro’s pieces have been the topic of two doctoral dissertations, and her life and music were the subject of the one-hour syndicated radio show, American MusicMakers, broadcast in February 2006 on public radio stations across the United States.
Ms. Shapiro has been an active participant in the Los Angeles art music community, as President of the Board of Directors of The American Composers Forum of Los Angeles and Moderator of ACF-LA’s Composers Salon series from 2000 through 2007, for which she has interviewed over 80 composers. She has served as an officer on the boards of national music organizations including NACUSA, The College Music Society, and The Society of Composers & Lyricists, and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Los Angeles City College music department and of the Alumni Council of Manhattan School of Music.
Ms. Shapiro's guest lectures at universities and conservatories place an equal emphasis on music composition and current publishing technologies and business skills for composers. She has been a featured speaker at music events including NARAS' Grammy® in the Schools, the International Alliance for Women in Music's International Congress of Women in Music, ASCAP's I Create Music Expo, Chamber Music America's National Conference and the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s First Nights series at Walt Disney Concert Hall, and was the Keynote speaker for the Society of Composers, Inc. 2006 National Student Conference.
A theme throughout Ms. Shapiro's career has been her involvement and volunteerism in issues related to music as well as those only obliquely so. She served on the Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California from 1990 to 1996, including a term as the 30,000-member affiliate's Vice President. In her capacity as the Chairperson of the ACLU/SC's State and National Legislative Action Committee, Ms. Shapiro produced three Conferences that brought State senators, Assembly members, clergy and community leaders together for day-long seminars to openly debate current issues, often related to the same free speech and First Amendment rights upon which artists rely.
Ms. Shapiro is the recipient of three awards from the ACLU honoring her activism, including being named the 1993 Chapter Activist of the Year.
Shapiro now resides in Washington state's San Juan Islands, and her website offers a comprehensive overview of her work.
Well, gosh, that is quite a list of accomplishments for a gorgeous gal who was born the year I graduated from high school, who then grew up in the mean streets of NYC. It amazes me that despite her impressive Bio and fabulous success with her music, she is gregarious, approachable, warm, intelligent, giving, and interested in all forms of artistic fellowship. And I was able to sense all these things about her just from listening to her music, and visiting with her on her blog. Imagine what it would be like to be in the same room with her?
Glenn Buttkus
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