About Us: Artistic Director

Versatile conductor Mark Shapiro is one of a handful of conductors in North America to have won a prestigious ASCAP Programming Award four times. Shapiro enjoys working with orchestras, opera companies, and choruses. He is Artistic Director of Cantori New York and the Monmouth Civic Chorus, and in 2011 was appointed Music Director of the Saint Cecilia Chorus and Orchestra in New York City, whom he will lead in two concerts in Carnegie Hall during 2011-12. Shapiro recently conducted Poulenc’s comic opera Les Mamelles de Tirésias for Juilliard Vocal Arts; the staged premiere of Ben Yarmolinsky’s opera Clarence and Anita 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 been a frequent cover conductor for opera and concert performances by the Bridgeport Symphony, which he recently led in a performance with soprano Harolyn Blackwell; and he is a principal guest conductor of the chamber orchestra Nova Sinfonia, in Halifax, with whom he will give two concerts in 2011-12. Shapiro gave a sold-out performance of music by Handel at the 5000-seat Roman amphitheater in Vaison-la-Romaine, France. Additional opera credits include American Opera Projects, the Center for Contemporary Opera, and the Banff Centre. Shapiro was heard on PBS, conducting the soundtrack for Ric Burns' special on New York City, and has appeared on radio stations WQXR and WNYC.

Shapiro is on the faculties of the CW Post Campus of Long Island University and Mannes College the New School for Music. Each summer he directs the Conducting Program at the European American Musical Alliance in Paris, where he also teaches keyboard harmony and score reading.