Alex Shaprio
Photo by Paul Chepikian
Alex Shapiro, an accomplished composer of acoustic and electroacoustic works, has formed a unique partnership this academic year with the NIU School of Music. She is donating her time and expertise to NIU where she will be supervising the recording of six of her compositions for wind band and electronic media at her own expense. Shapiro will serve three residencies that span the 2026-2027 performance season where she will work directly with students on composition, technology and the music business.
Her first residency will culminate with the NIU Wind Ensemble concert, Tuesday, September 29 in Boutell Memorial Concert Hall at 7 p.m. The concert will pair Shapiro’s works with those of Cécile Chaminade, a French composer in the late 1800 and early 1900s.
Shapiro will return for a joint concert featuring the NIU Wind Ensemble and Wind Symphony on November 20, and again in the spring for a Wind Ensemble concert on April 23.
Thomas Bough, NIU professor of music and director of bands says Shapiro will serve as a valued resource for students. “Alex will be available to talk with composition students, our music education students or any combination thereof,” he said. “She is a dynamic speaker and an influential artist, who also holds national office in ASCAP and other similar organizations.”
Shapiro jokes that she lives “in the middle of nowhere, on a small rock between the coasts of Washington state and British Columbia” spending her time composing “a lot of music” for chamber ensembles and symphonic wind bands, speaking at events, residencies and conferences around the world, participating on advocacy boards and committees, writing articles and essays and photo-blogging wildlife from the remote island on which she creates.
Her acoustic and electroacoustic works are published by her company, Activist Music LLC and are performed and broadcast daily and can be found on more than 40 commercial releases from record labels around the world.
She is noted for her seamless melding of live and recorded sounds and for her innovative uses of multimedia in both performance and music education. She is the Symphonic and Concert writer member of the board of directors of ASCAP, and serves on the boards of the ASCAP Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and the Music Publishers Association of the United States.
Learn more about Alex at alexshapiro.org.
