Choose artist...

Top 10 for Nov

'Frankenstein' resurrected with new music score by Michael Shapiro and performed by the LA Opera / SPECTRUM NEWS ONE

Michael Shapiro's works have been performed throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe-with broadcasts of premieres on National Public Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Israel Broadcasting Authority, Sender Freies Berlin, WQXR, and WCBS-TV. His music, which spans across all media, has been characterized in a New York Times review as "possessing a rare melodic gift." His oeuvre includes more than 100 works for solo voice, piano, chamber ensembles, chorus, orchestra, as well as for opera, film, and television, with recordings on Naxos and Paumanok Records.

Michael Shapiro has collaborated with such artists as Teresa Stratas, Jose Ferrer, Janos Starker, Sir Malcolm Arnold, Marin Alsop, Sergiu Comissiona, Jerry Junkin, Paul Shaffer, Eugene Drucker, Kim Cattrall, Tim Fain, Gottfried Wagner, Alexis Cole, Edward Arron, Jerome Rose, Mariko Anraku, Elliott Forrest, Steven Beck, Ariadne Greif, John Fullam, Captain Kenneth Collins, Jose Ramos Santana, Clamma Dale, Anita Darian, Florence Levitt, Kikuei Ikeda, Ayako Yoshida, Harris Poor, John Edward Niles, David Leibowitz, Robert Tomaro, Anthony LaGruth, Kathryn Amyotte, James Allen Anderson, Matthew Thomas Troy, Sarah McKoin, Albert Nguyen, Kevin Suetterlin, David Kehler, Jeffery Meyer, Glen Hemberger, Diva Goodfriend-Koven, and Emily Wong, and organizations such as the BBC National Symphony of Wales, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Charleston Symphony Orchestra, United States Navy Band, West Point Band, Royal Canadian Air Force Band, Dallas Winds, Dragefjetts Musikkorps, St. Petersburg (Russia) Chamber Philharmonic, Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Traverse Symphony Orchestra, New York Repertory Orchestra, Beloit Janesville Symphony, Garden State Philharmonic, Piedmont Wind Symphony, Opera Theatre of Northern Virginia, Westchester Concert Singers, International Opera Center at the Z?rich Opera, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Israel Broadcasting Authority, Sender Freies Berlin, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio (NPR), WCBS-TV, WQXR Radio, Milken Archive of Jewish Music, American Jewish Committee, Hawthorne String Quartet, Locrian Chamber Ensemble, Amernet String Quartet, Artemis, Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Festspillene i Bergen (Bergen International Festival), and Dateline NBC, and universities in New York, Texas, Minnesota, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Arizona, Illinois, Louisiana, Ohio, Delaware, Florida, Nebraska, Georgia, and Tennessee.

Michael Shapiro guest conducts internationally and is Laureate 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 (directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff and Colin Clive) (since its premiere the work has received over 40 productions internationally), 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 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.

James Whale's film classic Frankenstein (1931), starring Boris Karloff, was released without a musical score, as were many films in those early days of the talkie.  A number of critics, including Leonard Maltin, have remarked that Frankenstein is badly in need of music.  Michael Shapiro's 70-minute score is written to be played simultaneously with the screening of the film.  For modern-day concert- and moviegoers, his haunting music adds significantly to the emotional impact of the film.

Michael Shapiro was commissioned in 2002 by the Boris Koutzen Foundation to write this film score. The world premiere of this work, with live chamber orchestra and film, occurred in October 2002 at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Jacob Burns Film Center in New York. Since its premiere, it has received over 50 performances worldwide, including its European premiere at the Bergen International Festival in Norway, and at the Mariinsky Theater Film Annex in St. Petersburg, with major symphony orchestras in the United States, Canada, and the U.K., by Federal service bands such as the United States Navy Band in Washington, D.C., and the Royal Canadian Air Force Band (La Musique de Aviation royale canadienne) in Winnepeg, and university ensembles throughout the Americas.

The overture of the full orchestral version was recorded by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in the U.K. Due to its worldwide popularity, Michael Shapiro's Frankenstein is available in four (4) versions:

Chamber orchestra (15 players)(adaptable for strings into a theater orchestra version (25-35 players)
Full symphony orchestra (70+ players with double winds and added percussion) (premiered by the Virginia Symphony)
Wind ensemble (premiered by the Dallas Winds at Meyerson Symphony Center)
New operatic version for five singers and chamber orchestra (libretto is the Latin Requiem Mass)
Duration: 70 minutes


SPECTRUM NEWS ONE - Kristopher Gee writes…In 2001, composer Michael Shapiro was commissioned to compose a new score for James Whale's 1931 film of "Frankenstein" which originally had no original score. Now, the composer has added new material for a vocal chorus which is being premiered by LA Opera singers and orchestra. Shapiro took as the text for the vocal part sections of the liturgical Requiem Mass sung in Latin.

The performance is to be presented at the historic Theater at the Ace Hotel, originally built as the United Artists theater in 1927, just four years before Frankenstein's 1931 premiere.

SEE THE SPECTRUM NEWS ONE PAGE & WATCH THE VIDEO