Mark Shapiro, Music Director

Versatile conductor Mark Shapiro is one of a handful of artistic leaders in North America to have won a prestigious ASCAP Programming Award four times, achieving the unique distinction of winning such an award with more than one ensemble. His work has been praised by the New York Times for its “virtuosity and assurance,” which also remarked on its “uncommon polish,” and characterized by the New Jersey Star-Ledger as “erudite and far-reaching.”  He is widely recognized as an imaginative, passionate, and humorous interpreter, communicator and advocate.

Maestro Shapiro enjoys working in opera and with orchestras as well as choruses. Recent highlights include Poulenc’s comic opera Les mamelles de Tirésias with Juilliard Vocal Arts, the staged premiere of Ben Yarmolinsky’s Clarence & Anita, about the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, with Underworld Opera in New York, and Bizet’s Les pecheurs de perles and Rossini’s Il barbiere de Siviglia with the Opera Company of Middlebury (VT).  He has conducted for American Opera Projects and the Center for Contemporary Opera.

As an orchestral conductor, Maestro Shapiro led the Bridgeport Symphony in a concert featuring Metropolitan Opera soprano Harolyn Blackwell; he has frequently served as cover conductor for the Symphony’s Music Director Gustav Meier.  Maestro Shapiro is a principal guest conductor of the chamber orchestra Nova Sinfonia in Halifax, whom he has led in performances of symphonies and concertos by Beethoven, Dvorak, and Schubert, among others. 

Maestro Shapiro is currently in his twenty-first season as Artistic Director of Cantori New York, and this year is completing his twenty-one year tenure with the Red Bank, New Jersey-based Monmouth Civic Chorus. Under his baton, these groups have won local and national recognition both for their programming and for the artistry of their performances. 

With Cantori New York, Maestro Shapiro has conducted national, local and world premieres by an impressive roster of international composers, including Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Pascal Dusapin, Maurice Ohana, Arvo Pärt, Erkki-Sven Tüür, and Gottfried von Einem. Cantori has released four commercial recordings, on the Albany, Arsis, Newport Classics, and PGM labels. The group’s recording of Frank Martin’s oratorio Le vin herbé was an Opera News Editor’s Choice. Cantori has appeared at Zankel Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, and at Avery Fisher Hall and the Rose Theater at Lincoln Center; distinguished presenters have included Lincoln Center’s Great Performers Series, Music at the Anthology, Gotham Early Music Series, Chelsea Music Festival, Teatro Grattacielo, and World Financial Center Arts&Events.  In the inaugural season of Zankel Hall, Maestro Shapiro prepared Cantori for a performance with Michael Tilson Thomas.

Maestro Shapiro’s concerts with the Monmouth Civic Chorus have encompassed major works for chorus and orchestra including the Verdi Requiem, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, and the Sea Symphony of Vaughan Williams. The group has also ventured further afield for Stravinsky’s Les Noces and Szymanowki’s Stabat Mater, and offered noted revivals of the Mass in D by Dame Ethel Smyth and Peter Mennin’s Symphony no. 4, among many others. A recent highlight was the American premiere of Sphaera by the up-and-coming French composer Guillaume Connesson, which was supported by the French American Cultural Exchange.

Frequently in demand as a choral consultant, Maestro Shapiro was invited to Austin by the Grammy-nominated ensemble Conspirare to lead workshops and conduct Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man as part of a regional festival presented under the aegis of the National Endowment for the Arts. He led a ten-day workshop at the triennial Choralies festival in Vaison-la-Romaine, France, which culminated in a sold-out performance of a version of Handel’s Saul in the 5000-seat Roman amphitheater.  

Maestro Shapiro has been heard on PBS, conducting the soundtrack for Ric Burns' special on New York City, as well as on radio stations WQXR and WNYC, and Sirius Satellite Radio, where he was interviewed by Robert Aubrey Davis.  He was an invited conductor in the inaugural Sing of the New York Choral Consortium, and was for many years a conductor at the National Choral Council’s annual Messiah Sing-In at Avery Fisher Hall. He was a guest conductor for Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum, and for the New York Art Ensemble at Merkin Hall.  His recording of Michael Dellaira’s opera Chéri, featuring Marni Nixon, was released on Albany Records.
  
Maestro Shapiro is Assistant Professor of Music at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, where he teaches music theory and conducting, and directs several ensembles.   A long-time member of the faculty of Mannes College the New School for Music, Maestro Shapiro is also Director of the Conducting Program at the European American Musical Alliance in Paris. 

Maestro Shapiro maintains a sideline as a narrator for orchestral performances, including Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf; in 2011 he narrated a concert performance of Verdi’s Aida by the Bridgeport Symphony.  He also enjoys lecturing on Music and Mind, and has taught courses in this subject at the New School in New York.