Michael Jeffrey Shapiro is a noted American composer and conductor. 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. He studied conducting independently with Carl Bamberger at the Mannes College of Music in New York. At The Juilliard School, where he earned his master?s degree, he studied solf�ge and score reading with the renowned Mme. Ren�e Longy?known to generations of Juilliard students as ?the infamous madame of dictation? for her rigorous demands and classic pedagogic methods?and composition with Vincent Persichetti. His most influential composition teacher, however, was Elie Siegmeister, with whom he studied privately. 

February 1st, 1951 in Brooklyn (Age 74)