The versatile conductor Mark Shapiro is at home with choruses, opera companies, and orchestras. He has been Artistic Director of Cantori New York and the Monmouth Civic Chorus in Red Bank, NJ since 1991, and was recently appointed Associate Conductor of the verismo opera company Teatro Grattacielo. Upcoming guest appearances include the chamber orchestra Nova Sinfonia, in Halifax; and several engagements as cover conductor for the Bridgeport Symphony. A CD of Michael Dellaira's opera Chéri, featuring Marni Nixon and conducted by Shapiro, is due to be released on Albany Records in the fall of 2007.

With The Monmouth Civic Chorus, Shapiro has conducted a wide range of choral and orchestral works, including Stravinsky's Les Noces, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Vaughan-Williams's Sea Symphony, and rareties such as Dame Ethel Smyth's Mass in D, Peter Mennin's Symphony No. 4, and Ulysses Kay's Lamentations of Jeremiah.

Shapiro's instrumental conducting engagements have included the Cygnus and New York Art Ensembles, Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum in a project with the Cassatt Quartet, and PBS, where he was heard conducting the soundtrack for Ric Burns's special about New York. Opera and music theater appearances include American Opera Projects, the Center for Contemporary Opera, the Banff Centre, Metro Lyric Opera and the Two River Theatre.

A longtime faculty member at Mannes College The New School for Music, Shapiro has taught orchestral and choral conducting, conducted opera, and led the Mannes Chorus, with whom he appeared at the United Nations. In 2007 and 2008 Shapiro collaborates with New School psychology professor Michael Schober and physics professor David Morgan in two seminars: Music and Mind, and The Science of Music and Sound . Each summer Shapiro serves as Director of the Conducting Program at the European-American Musical Alliance in Paris.

A summa cum laude graduate of Yale University, Shapiro earned diplomas in orchestral conducting from the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, and the Peabody Conservatory, where his teacher was Gustav Meier. He has participated in workshops with Robert Spano and Eric Ericson. Shapiro holds a doctorate from Stonybrook University.