Michael Shapiro is a noted American composer and conductor. Since 2002 Shapiro has been the music director and conductor of the Chappaqua Orchestra in New York’s Westchester County, which he conducted for the world premiere of his score for the classic 1931 film Frankenstein-The Movie Score (directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff) at the Jacob Burns Film Center (which has since its premiere received over a dozen productions nationally) as well as for the world premiere of his own orchestral work, Roller Coaster, which received its West Coast premiere under the baton of Marin Alsop in 2010 at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music while Shapiro was a composer in residence. He served for two years as the music consultant to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., where he produced and performed music by a number of composers who were either murdered by the Germans and their collaborators or had survived as refugees from the Third Reich. He has also been the assistant conductor at the Zurich Opera Studio.
The son of a Klezmer band clarinetist, Michael Shapiro was born in Brooklyn, New York, and spent most of his high school years in Baldwin, a Long Island suburb. The winner of several piano competitions during his youth, he earned his B.A. at Columbia College, Columbia University, where he majored in English literature and concentrated in music, benefiting most—according to his own assessment—from some of the department’s stellar musicology faculty, which, at that time, included such international luminaries as Paul Henry Lang, Denis Stevens, Joel Newman, and others.
[complete bio] For more information visit www.michaelshapiro.com
Cynthia Peterson
Artistic Director, Chamber Series
Pianist Cynthia Peterson performs works from a broad solo, chamber, and contemporary repertoire. Her performances include the American Academy in Rome, radio broadcasts in Washington D.C. and Virginia, Anderson House Museum in Washington, D.C., Minnesota, and chamber music touring in Canada. She has appeared at many venues in the New York area including the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of the City of New York, Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center, and the Garden State Center for the Arts. As prize-winner of concerto competitions, she performed the Beethoven First Piano Concerto with the Philharmonic Symphony of Westchester, and the Gershwin Concerto with the Virginia Beach Pops Orchestra, and was soloist with several local orchestras including the Yonkers Civic Orchestra and the Westchester Youth Symphony.
She appeared at Yale University and the Metropolitan Museum with violinist Kyung-Jun Kim, and as the featured pianist in works by John Corigliano at the CUNY Graduate Center Auditorium, her performance hailed by the composer as “extraordinary.”
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David Restivo, Executive Director
David grew up in Houston, Texas and started playing violin in school at the age of 11. While in high school David was a member of the National High School Honors Orchestra where they played at Kennedy Center in Washington DC and Helsinki, Finland. David received a scholarship to Texas State University for Music Performance studying with Dr. Stephen Redfield. While in college, the orchestra toured Europe performing in Warsaw, Vienna and Prague. After 2 years David changed his major to Sound Recording Technology. He continued with violin lessons throughout college and received his bachelor’s degree in 1997 in Music/Sound Recording Technology.
After college David moved to Boston working in the music business. There he met his wife, and after a short time in Dallas, where their daughter was born, they moved to Long Island where he began his career of programming Crestron with Audio Video Systems. At that time David started playing with the New York Symphonic Arts Ensemble in Manhattan where he was a board member for 3 years. After several moves all over NY and Westchester, they settled in Chappaqua last year.
David and his family have lived in Westchester County since 2006. In 2007 he began violin lessons with Elliot Magaziner at the Westchester Music Conservatory. He also plays with several local groups throughout Westchester that include the Chappaqua Orchestra, the St. Thomas Orchestra, the Collegium of Westchester and the Croton Chorale. David often plays chamber music with the numerous local musicians in the Westchester County area. David finds it a privilege to be a board member of the Chappaqua Orchestra. He looks forward to exploring new ways to bring classical music of all shapes and sizes to the residents of Westchester County.