Alex Shapiro

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. She was educated at the Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music as a student of Ursula Mamlok 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.