Alex Shapiro

Alex Shapiro has found that international relationships created through the internet, paired with local community involvement, have led to a happy career as one of the Pacific coast's more familiar composers of acoustic and electroacoustic chamber music. Published by Activist Music, Alex's works are heard weekly in concerts and broadcasts across the U.S. and abroad, and can be found on labels including Oehms Classics, Cambria Master Recordings, Crystal Records, Centaur Records and Innova Recordings. Her life and music were the subject of the one-hour show American MusicMakers, broadcast in February 2006 on public radio stations across the United States.

Alex was educated at The Juilliard School and Manhattan School of Music as a student of Ursula Mamlok and John Corigliano. Among her honors and awards are those from The American Music Center, ASCAP, the American Composers Forum, Mu Phi Epsilon, The California Arts Council and The MacDowell Colony. A frequent moderator for many new music events in southern California, Alex is the recent President of the Board of Directors of The American Composers Forum of Los Angeles, and has served as an officer on the boards of national music organizations including NACUSA, The College Music Society, and The Society of Composers & Lyricists. Alex's volunteer activism also encompasses three terms she served on the Board of Directors of the ACLU of Southern California, including two years as the 30,000-member affiliate's Vice-president. When she's not sailing, kayaking or exploring the tide pools, Alex procrastinates on her next piece by updating her website, www.alexshapiro.org, with concert information and audio clips of her works.