Alex Shapiro (born January 11, 1962) is a composer of acoustic and electroacoustic music favoring combinations of modal harmonies with chromatic ones, and often emphasizing strong pulse and rhythm. Shapiro was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. She was educated at the

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most elit ...

and Manhattan School of Music as a student of

Ursula Mamlok Ursula Mamlok (February 1, 1923 – May 4, 2016) was a German-born American composer and teacher. Education and influences Mamlok was born as Ursula Meyer in Berlin, Germany, into a Jewish family, and studied piano and composition with Professor G ...

and John Corigliano. The majority of Shapiro's catalog is chamber works, and since 2008 she has also composed several commissions for symphonic wind band, several of which include the use of prerecorded electronics. Performance highlights include 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''; a string quintet, ''Current Events'', and ''Paper Cut'', for wind band, electronics and printer paper, commissioned by the American Composers Forum BandQuest series in 2010. Shapiro is an active participant in the U.S. art music community. She currently serves on the board of directors of the

American Music Center New Music USA is a new music organization formed by the merging of the American Music Center with Meet The Composer on November 8, 2011. The new organization retains the granting programs of the two former organizations as well as two media progr ...

and the

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowel ...

and sits on the ASCAP Symphony & Concert Committee; in 2010 she was elected as the concert music composer representative to the ASCAP Board of Review. She is the recent president of the board of directors of The American Composers Forum of Los Angeles and Moderator of the ''Los Angeles Composers Salon'' series from 2000 to the present, for which she has interviewed over 100 composers. Shapiro testified in September 2009 on a

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdicti ...

panel hearing in Washington, D.C., about broadband access and digital rights issues. Shapiro served on the board of directors of the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

of Southern California from 1990 to 1996, including a term as the 30,000-member affiliate's vice president. She is the recipient of three awards from the ACLU honoring her activism, including being named the 1993 Chapter Activist of the Year.

Articles and reviews

"American Composer: Alex Shapiro"
Kyle Gann, ''Chamber Music'', May/June, 2008

External links

Alex Shapiro websiteASCAP Audio Portrait, September 2008
(interview)
New Music Box: The Economy of Exposure
(article)
New Music Box: As Important as the Printing Press
(article)
New Music Box: Composing Your Happiness
(article)
New Music Box: Neo-Romanticism
(article)
Kalvos and Damian's New Music Bazaar
(radio interview)
All in Good Measure: New Music, New Thoughts
(podcast interview) {{DEFAULTSORT:Shapiro, Alex Manhattan School of Music alumni 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers American women classical composers American classical composers 1962 births Living people 21st-century American composers 20th-century American women musicians 20th-century American composers 21st-century American women musicians 20th-century women composers 21st-century women composers