Do you love tuba music as much as Alex loves the tuba? Tubist Gretchen Renshaw and 24 additional low brass musicians commissioned Alex to compose an electroacoustic work for solo tuba, and the result is CHRONICLE, which Gretchen premiered on August 16, 2024 in Mito City, Japan at the International Women's Brass Conference. It's a nine-minute piece that's unlike anything in the instrument's repertoire, venturing seamlessly from a 12-tone row, to a jazz ballad, to a majestic cinematic theme that sounds like a scene from the best kind of blockbuster movie-- the one in a listener's mind.

Alex is delighted that her enthusiasm for writing for low brass takes up a little space in the Fall 2024 issue of the International Tuba-Euphonium Association's Journal. You can read her engaging conversation with tubist Michael Waddell by clicking HERE.

In December 2024 Alex will join conductors Gregory X. Whitmore and William Tonissen and composer Michael Markowski at The Midwest Clinic in Chicago, presenting an action-packed session on the future of wind band music titled, The Band Director's Toolbox: Fusing Innovative Programming and Immersive Ensemble Rehearsal Techniques. Alex has created a valuable companion webpage with a ton of resources, and there will be cool swag handed out at the presentation!

Alex had a GREAT time presenting a multimedia clinic on artificial intelligence, immersive performances, and their impact on concerts and education, at the College Band Directors National Association Western/Northwestern Division Conference on March 29, 2024. Speaking at the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts, Alex (or was it her avatar?) described (as written by GTP4, or by her??) the many exciting (and sometimes terrifying) options ahead that are permanently changing the field.

Alex Shapiro will be at Memorial University of Newfoundland for a three-day composer residency, March 17-19, 2025! Highlights will include:

— A special collaboration with the MUN Wind Ensemble on her epic symphony for winds, brass, percussion and electronics, IMMERSION;

— A public lecture on AI and the future of music education and performance;

— Engagements with the MUN Music and Ecology class, composition students, and local school music programs!

"Sit up straight!". "Stretch out your diaphragm!". "Folks in the back: no slumping!".


If you're a band director, this probably sounds familiar. While sharing tales of these typical frustrations with a colleague one day, it dawned on Alex that a piece could serve as an object lesson. Voila, SLUMP, her newest electroacoustic band piece that's playable by musicians of all ages and... of all awful playing postures. A physically dramatic piece, audiences will laugh at the spectacle. And maybe everyone will even enjoy the music!

The Chicago-based Wurtz-Berger Duo dropped their new album Touching Rapture on March 24th 2024. It features new works for cello and piano composed by Tina Davidson, Laura Elise Schwendinger and Amy Wurtz, and opens with Alex's dramatic duet OF WOOD AND TOUCH. Click the album cover to listen!

Conductor Vu Nguyen's latest recording project is From a Deep Blue Sky, an album of new works for winds performed by the members of the University of the Pacific Wind Bands in California. It includes pieces by Kevin Day, Viet Cuong, and Brian Bui, and ends with Alex's brooding electroacoustic sextet TRAIN OF THOUGHT.
Click the album cover to listen!

Alex has never been on faculty anywhere.
She doesn't even have a college diploma.
But with nearly twenty years of experience composing for and rehearsing with students of all ages, she has a LOT of strong opinions about music education.
Wanna hear them?
Jim Yarnell invited Alex to be his August 2024 podcast guest, and the conversation covered a LOT of ground that is guaranteed to be inspiring to music educators, band directors, and anyone who cares about the future of music education! To listen, CLICK HERE.

Does your life lack the luster and shine that can only come from hearing a lively podcast conversation while you brush your teeth, get dressed, and sip your coffee while doom-scrolling the news on your phone? Well, no longer!

Let fabulous music educator and host Catheryn Foster and Alex, a grateful-to-have-gotten-to-gab-with-her composer and advocate-with-a-good-radio-voice, fill your ears with excited chatter about:

• Music in rural communities
• Technology as a portal for DEI and socio-economic access
• Alex testifying to the FCC in Washington D.C.
• 30 years of copyright challenges, from Napster to AI
• The best way to license music
• Teaching the basics of intellectual property to young students
• How electroacoustic pieces are designed
• EA music and multimedia in education and performance
• Positive messages for students: encouraging curiosity and risk-taking without fear...

...and at 44:10: an exceptionally blunt conversation about how to NORMALIZE, not TOKENIZE, when programming concerts and teaching materials. Plus:

Alex's Programming Resources page of links and how it came about;
What it's like to birth hundreds of musical children into the world, hoping they play nice with others and that maybe, just maybe, someone will love them...
And, the serendipitous way Alex ended up writing 26 wind band pieces-- beginning at the tender age of 45.

When the doom-scrolling just gets too overwhelming, this August 2024 podcast will bring hope and a few laughs to your day! CLICK HERE to enjoy!

Is there a sonic hole in your day that would benefit from the cheery background patter of three musicians gabbing? And if those three musicians didn't just talk about music, but also about everything from the Manhattan island scene in the 70s, the San Juan Island scene in the 2020s, and a very slithery scene somewhere in Los Angeles in the 80s and 90s, would that entertain you? Well, it entertained Alex and the wonderful podcast hosts of Beyond Artless Phil Ostrander and Peter Haberman! Fill that sonic hole in your day and join them by clicking HERE!

If the... uh... slithery part of the Beyond Artless conversation piqued your interest, then you'll definitely want to listen to one of the funniest podcast conversations Alex has ever had with Dylan Maddix and Cait Nishimura on their show The Band Room. For more information about herpetological fetishes than you could possibly imagine, click HERE!

For many more podcasts, webcasts, and unexpectedly candid moments with Alex, visit THIS PAGE!

Activist Music was featured prominently at the December 2023 Midwest Clinic in Chicago, thanks to Alex's largest distributor Hal Leonard devoting an entire end-cap display rack to her large ensemble catalog! With its convenient spot at the conference entrance, Alex merely had to stick out her foot and "accidentally" trip people, causing them to fall into her display and feel obligated to buy her scores. Thanks, Hal Leonard!

June 12th-16th in New York City is known as Music Week, but Alex jokingly calls it Annual Acronym Week. She was back in her home town of Manhattan for the board meetings of ASCAP, the ASCAP Foundation, and the MPA (Music Publishers Association of the United States), as well as annual events for the NMPA (National Music Publishers' Association) and SHoF (Songwriters Hall of Fame).

Each of these organizations advocates tirelessly for creators, copyright, and these days, for the workable co-existence of artificially generated intelligence and biologically generated music-makers!

Click each photo for a closer look at a lot of smiles.

Between May 29 and June 3 2023, Alex steeped herself in the low brass world at the International Tuba and Euphonium Association conference in Tempe, Arizona. Her sonata for tuba and piano, MUSIC FOR TWO BIG INSTRUMENTS, was among the required competition pieces in the Solo Tuba, Artist Division category, and was also heard in concert by Kevin Waas and pianist Susan Waas-- with four dancers performing to it, as well! Wanna see an excerpt? Click HERE.

And thanks to a commission from Matt Hightower at University of Kentucky, a fresh electroacoustic piece for tuba and euphonium ensemble titled DEPTH SOUNDING was masterfully premiered at the conference on May 31st during the first main concert at Gammage Hall. Click below to listen, or you can watch the performance on the piece's webpage linked above!

On March 19th 2023, San Jose State University hosted the SJSU Honors Wind Ensemble and Alex was their Composer-in-Residence. Two different honor bands performed concerts that included Alex's electroacoustic works TIGHT SQUEEZE (conducted by David Vickerman) and OFF THE EDGE (conducted by Craig McKenzie), and the San Jose State University Wind Ensemble performed Alex's newest acoustic band piece, FREE, also conducted by David Vickerman.

The 2023 Capital University NOW MUSIC Festival featured composer Alex Shapiro. Her residency from February 21-26 included a keynote address, a series of concerts of the wind band, jazz, chamber, and solo repertoire performed by the faculty, students, and other local musicians and ensembles, and masterclasses with students and composers.

You can read what Alex had to say about nature, music, business, and community in her February 2023 interview for Capital Stories by clicking HERE.

Of the roughly 200 pieces in Alex's diverse concert catalog from the past 25 years, all but one of them was composed, premiered, published, patted on the head, and sent out into the world by the composer to make friends with more musicians while she moved on to other things. Like writing the next piece. Or scooping out the cat litter box. Yes, all but one: ARCHIPELAGO.

A chamber ensemble work for ten players commissioned in 2009 for Chicago's wonderful Fifth House ensemble, its first iteration excluded a piano part solely due to the lack of space for one on the stage in the premiering venue. A few years later, Alex created a second version of the piece with piano, turning the dectet into an onzetet. And giving her an excuse to make up words.

Despite the efforts of ardent conductors who in post-rehearsal distress from attempting to make sense out of this ragged music should have billed Alex for their therapy sessions, subsequent performances of ARCHIPELAGO always pinned Alex's internal Cringe-O-Meter. She revised the piece in 2013. And again in 2015. And again in 2021. The Cringe-O-Meter remained unforgiving and relentless.

Finally in 2023, Alex's muses stumbled upon an epiphany of cognitive dissonance (ooh!): the true essence of the music that she'd actually written was at cross purposes with the intellectual "idea" of the music that had been lodged in her head since 2009. Using her sharpest extraction pliers, Alex finally freed herself from her preconceptions. Her internal Cringe-O-Meter has forever been silenced. Well, at least for this piece!

14 years later, she is delighted to publish the final version of ARCHIPELAGO. You can hear a demo, and hopefully sometime soon, a live version!

A peek into what makes Alex tick (and, tock) can be gleaned from this wonderful profile piece that Amanda Cook wrote for I Care If You Listen, published in May 2023. Click on either icon to the right to read it online, or to download it, click HERE.

On November 5th 2022, Alex was a Keynote speaker at the 2022 NAfME National Conference in Washington, D.C., in a more thrilling than you can even imagine conversation, joined by Brian Nabors and moderated by Rob Deemer. The session wasn't recorded, so you'll just have to trust us about how thrilling it really was!

Alex's most recent guest appearance was on October 11, 2022, for the podcast Enhance Life With Music. Host Mindy Peterson invited Alex, who has held the sole Symphonic & Concert writer seat on the Board of Directors of ASCAP since 2014, to explain to listeners exactly what the non-profit organization does. The resulting 38 minute conversation is an illuminating look into ASCAP's history as the oldest performing rights society in the U.S., and its many remarkable programs including career resources, civic and social initiatives, technology, wellness, and legislative advocacy. Click HERE to listen!

On October 28, 2022, conductor Allan McMurray led the USC Thornton Winds in a bat-outta-hell Los Angeles performance of Alex's 2021 work, AIRBORNE. In addition to being a stand-alone piece, AIRBORNE is the first movement of Shapiro's second symphony, SUSPENDED. Strap in!

July 13, 2021 at the DeVos Performance Hall in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Alex's four-movement symphony for winds, percussion, and pre-recorded soundscape, SUSPENDED, was premiered. Conducted by Cynthia Johnston Turner and commissioned by Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma for their National Intercollegiate Band and Convention, it is Alex's most dramatic and emotional reflection to date: addressing not only the pandemic, but the many troubling, ongoing issues of the times. Dr. Johnston Turner gave a second performance of the symphony on March 23rd 2022, leading the Eastman Wind Ensemble at Kodak Hall in Rochester, NY.

Want to hear it? Click HERE to visit the dedicated page, or the icon below to download the recording of the premiere.

Want to get a tour of it? Alex describes and plays excerpts from each movement for conductor Paula Crider during their 2022 Through the Eyes of the Composer webcast for Conn Selmer. Click HERE to watch!

Alex was delighted to be the 2022 Commissioned Composer for the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. Her work with the students culminated with UWRF's 56th Annual Commissioned Composer concert on April 21, 2022.

The event featured a wide swath of Alex's music in varying genres, on a concert including 12 of her works ranging from acoustic and electroacoustic chamber music, a piece for SATB choir, three of her jazz tunes, plus conductor Kristin Tjornehoj leading the UWRF wind ensemble in two electroacoustic works, and the premiere performance of the (all-acoustic!) UWRF commissioned piece, FREE.

Much of the year 2020 can be epitomized by the concept of being deprived of breath. From the lung-destroying effects of COVID-19, to the murderous strangulations of police brutality. From the searing, choking walls of wildfire smoke, to the smothering treason of politicians attempting to asphyxiate democracy.

All of these topics traversed Alex's mind and heart as she composed BREATHE, a new, ten minute work for electroacoustic wind ensemble, commissioned by the Colorado Mesa University Wind Symphony, Calvin Hofer, conductor, with the generous support of Karen Combs and Lynn Wegener. The piece is Alex's second one utilizing a 12-tone row (the first being the very, VERY different TIGHT SQUEEZE). BREATHE would have premiered in Colorado in December 2020, but the pandemic delayed the concert to April 27, 2021.

What was not delayed was the sense of emotional release that Alex felt through the catharsis of composing this work, which begins as bleakly as the subject matter, but shifts mood as the final minutes appear. You can hear for yourself, in a powerful recording from the premiere.

Alex created an unusual, sound design-heavy electroacoustic concert opener for wind band, ASCENT. It was scheduled to be performed by the University of Hawai'i Wind Ensemble conducted by lead commissioner Jeffrey Boeckman at the CBDNA Western/Northwestern Division Conference in Tacoma, WA on March 19, 2020, but we all know what happened to this and every other conference across the world that month. The work was commissioned by 25 ensembles from the U.S. and Canada.

Also featured at the conference on March 20th would have been Alex's band work MOMENT, performed by the University of Alberta Symphonic Wind Ensemble conducted by Angela Schroeder, and a presentation on large ensemble multimedia works and social activism that Alex was looking forward to giving, with University of British Columbia Director of Bands Rob Taylor, and University of Puget Sound Director of Bands Gerard Morris.

Nonetheless, right before all the concert cancellations, the University of Hawai'i Wind Ensemble was able to perform ASCENT a couple of times for their local island audiences. You can hear the fantastic job they did for the Honolulu premiere by clicking on the links below.

Alex has composed an emotional electroacoustic work for SATB choir, titled O DEATH ROCK ME ASLEEP. The dramatic piece is set to a moving text penned by Anne Boleyn while imprisoned in the Tower of London as she awaited her beheading. Commissioned by Suzi Digby and The Golden Bridge, the new work premiered in Beverly Hills, CA. on September 7, 2019.

Click here to listen to, or watch,
the flawless premiere and its stunning ending.

Band director Jim Mobley loves the fresh genre of electroacoustic wind band music, and believes that there should be more such pieces in the repertoire— especially for younger musicians to perform. He put together the N-BEAM consortium, which over the course of three years, has supported the addition of three new Grade 2.5 EA works to the concert band world. Composers Daniel Montoya Jr. and Benjamin Taylor wrote their pieces-- TECHNO BLADE, and AXE TO GRIND, respectively-- for the 2018 and 2019 seasons, and in 2020, Alex delivered OFF THE EDGE, to its 35 commissioning ensembles.

Have a listen to Alex's pop-EDM/Euro-disco approach to music for middle schoolers: and play it loudly!

Want to witness just how ridiculous three composers and a band director can be under the glare of conference floor lights at the Midwest Clinic? Click here:

A [non-performing!] pianist herself, Alex has always loved composing for the instrument. Pianist Adam Marks recorded all of Alex's solo piano works for a gorgeous album on innova Recordings titled ARCANA. The collection was released on August 28, 2020, and if you visit the dedicated page for the [slightly unusual] project, you can read about it and enjoy preview excerpts, and videos!

The March-April 2021 issue of American Record Guide includes a glowing review of the entire album, penned by Stephanie Ann Boyd, who concludes with, "This disc is a triumph and I highly recommend spending time with the work of these two artists." Click HERE to read the entire review of ARCANA on Ms. Boyd's website.

Activist Music has published a collection of Alex Shapiro's solo piano works, available at a discounted rate as a set of .pdf downloads. Ranging from short offerings to those with multiple movements, these idiomatic pieces reveal an especially personal musical world. For complete information about the published collection, click HERE.

Three of Alex's most recent electroacoustic wind band works from 2020 and 2021 were heard at the CBDNA Western/Northwestern conference at University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA in mid-March 2022.

Jeff Boeckman's presentation on his Symphony of the Hawaiian Birds project included the music video for Alex's concert opener ASCENT, David Vickerman's concert with the SJSU Wind Ensemble included the fourth movement of Alex's latest symphony SUSPENDED, titled VIRAL, and BREATHE was heard on Ed Powell's Pacific Lutheran University Wind Ensemble concert.

Alex also joined her colleagues Rob Taylor, and composers Viet Cuong, Joel Puckett and Rob Hutchinson on a 90 minute composer forum talk that dove head first into a great many topics relevant to the conductors in the audience!

Alex is proud to be a clinician for Conn-Selmer, and is available to speak to groups on myriad topics ranging from technology, DEI initiatives, copyright and business, activism, and the art of composition.

As part of the Winter 2022 Music Educator Master Class series, New Beginnings: Rehearse and Renew, Alex gave a webinar titled "Music and Activism: Raising Awareness One Note at a Time" in which she offered powerful examples of the power possessed by music educators and creators to raise musician and audience awareness of social and environmental topics.

In April 2022, Alex had the pleasure of being hosted by Dr. Paula Crider as they walked the audience through Alex's latest symphony, SUSPENDED during her interview for Conn-Selmer's Concert Artistry series.

Alex was the guest composer at the Total Band Director Workshop, held July 28 & 29 at Rush Creek Golf Course in Maple Grove, Minnesota.

Hosted by Eckroth Music and sponsored by Hal Leonard, J.W. Pepper, Yamaha, and Conn & Selmer, this annual event is an intensive workshop for band directors that provides new tools, materials, and fresh perspectives on the field.

Alex gave presentations on electroacoustic music, multimedia, and the power of sharing environmental and social messages through music and the impact performances can have on raising audience awareness. Additionally, there was an electroacoustic "petting zoo" reading session, during which directors played excerpts from a selection of Alex's EA band works and learned how to set up the tech and become comfortable with a click track!

Alex was a clinician on two panels at the 2021 Midwest Clinic in Chicago.

Embedding Social Emotional Learning in Instrumental Music Education explored creative approaches to bringing out the best in students, and Alex-- appearing via a multimedia video presentation- was joined by co-hosts Scott Edgar and Bob Morrison of Music for All, and composers Brian Balmages, Cait Nishimura, Richard Saucedo, Jim Stephenson, and Omar Thomas. You can watch the session HERE.

Alex is also pleased to be a clinician for Music for All, and has participated in several of their field-expanding webinars.

The Horizon Leans Forward… A Panel Discussion on the Issues of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity in the Wind Band Field offered a frank conversation among Alex's composer and conductor co-authors Erik Leung, Courtney Snyder, Alfred Watkins, Rob Taylor, and Jodie Blackshaw.

Alex gave one of her favorite online multimedia presentations at "Unmasking Music Education"-- the Nova Scotia Music Educators Association Conference. Titled, "Music with Messages: The Impact of Activism through Art," Alex uses selected multimedia electroacoustic band works from her catalog to exemplify the powerful connection that can be had between the arts, technology, and the world around us.

In June 2020, CBDNA launched a YouTube series and kicked it off with Alex's presentation, Impact and Activism: Multimedia and the Wind Band World. She was joined by conductors Gerard Morris and Rob Taylor, and you can watch the inspiring webinar by clicking the icon on the right!

Watch Impact and Activism:

Alex has been elected to the Board of Directors of the Music Publishers Association of the United States, representing her publishing company Activist Music. She is the MPA's first independent member whose company publishes solely her own catalog. Click here to delve into the remarkable collection of resources and information offered on the MPA website, and to learn more about the broad scope of advocacy the organization provides for the concert music and educational world.

Alex is honored to have been elected to the Board of Directors of The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, which provides financial support for myriad composers and ensembles seeking assistance in launching recording and performance projects, and handles permissions for uses of Copland's music. Click here to peruse the site!

New Music USA is a national arts advocacy organization which provides over $1 million each year in grant support for the creation and performance of new work and community-building throughout the country. Alex was an inaugural co-chair of its Program Council, an advisory committee of people working in the field.

Composers Now is an important organization that celebrates the diverse music of living composers, and Alex is delighted to have joined its Distinguished Mentors Council. Click here to learn about its upcoming events throughout the year!

Alex has often gone to Capitol Hill where each spring, members of the Board of Directors of ASCAP and writer members who are strong copyright advocates meet with Senators, members of Congress, and their aides, to keep the message of fair compensation for music creators front and center. Known as "Stand with Songwriters" Advocacy Day, the office visits are preceded by an inspiring evening concert at the Library of Congress called, "We Write the Songs," where policy makers enjoy performances by some of the world's top ASCAP creators.

Over the years Alex has spoken with many Representatives, including Joaquin Castro (D-TX), pictured here in May 2016 with Alex and ASCAP board President and Chairman Paul Williams.

Alex was in Tokyo, Japan in late May 2019 for meetings with her colleagues on the Executive Committee of The International Council Of Music Authors (CIAM)— the writers council of CISAC.

While there, she and several CIAM ExCo members gave a workshop hosted by Japan's collective management society JASRAC, for an auditorium of Japanese music creators, addressing local and international copyright issues.

In January 2019 during the CIAM ExCo meetings in Cabo Verde, Africa, Alex participated in career and copyright workshops with her CIAM ExCo writer colleagues.

In November 2018 in Mexico City, Alex was with her writer colleagues on the CIAM ExCo at the Annual CIAM Congress in Mexico City. She moderated a panel discussion with music creators from Australia, Europe, Canada, and South America, discussing not only the problems of far-reaching biases, but the solutions. Also in attendance were ASCAP President and Chairman Paull Williams, and ASCAP CEO Elizabeth Matthews.

Alex again joined her international writer colleagues on the CIAM ExCo at the May 2018 CISAC General Assembly meeting in Warsaw, Poland, at which she spoke on a panel addressing gender inequity issues throughout the music industry. You can read about it by clicking here.

CIAM addresses issues ranging from global copyright and royalty payment improvements, to transfer of value, fair trade music, blockchain potential, and much more, in an effort to advance the wellbeing of music creators around the world.

Speaking in Mexico City, 2018

Speaking in Warsaw, 2018

Speaking in Tokyo, 2017

Giving a workshop
in Cabo Verde, 2019

Working in Lisbon, 2017

Giving a workshop
in Tokyo, 2019

The ASCAP EXPO-- now known as the ASCAP EXPERIENCE-- brings artists from every genre together in Hollywood for an inspiring conference of workshops, panels, performances and networking. In 2017 Alex spoke on a panel titled "Getting Credit Where Credit is Due," addressing the need for accurate attribution across all genres and in all uses of digital media, alongside songwriter and performer Aloe Blacc, songwriter and fellow ASCAP Board member Desmond Child, attorney and panel moderator Dina LaPolt, and Auddly founder Niclas Molinder (pictured L-R). You can read about the animated discussion-- which included comments from Pandora's head of publisher licensing Adam Parness during the Q&A by clicking here.

At the 2016 EXPO, Alex gave a lively presentation on a panel about creative uses of multimedia in concert music, titled "Seeing Music: Multimedia Concerts for a Visual World." Pictured L-R: Composer Veronika Krausas, Alex, visualists Candace Reckinger and Michael Patterson, and ASCAP VP of Concert Music Cia Toscanini.

Alex has been a speaker at nearly all of the ASCAP EXPOS-- now called The ASCAP Experience-- since the annual conference was launched in 2005.

The annual ASCAP Foundation Awards event in New York City honors emerging and distinguished music creators from a broad array of genres. For information, click here

Alex enjoyed a VERY spirited conversation with The Band Room Podcast's cohosts conductor Dylan Maddix and composer Cait Nishimura about why she loves the band community, how her environment influences her work, and how she overcomes creative blocks and anxiety, as well as her thoughts about adaptable music and the future of music publishing.

One of Alex's favorite 2020 conversations was with conductor Aaron Noe for his webcast Wind Conductor. They discussed a remarkably broad range of topics, including taking a deep dive into upcoming technogies destined to have a profound effect on musicians. Click the icon at right to watch.

Beloved band director Charlie Menghini launched a new podcast series of conversations with composers, conductors, and educators, Band Talk with Charlie Menghini and Friends, and Alex was the first of his guests for Episode 2. Click the icon at right to have a listen.

January 2016

Part 1:

Part 2:

Alex spent the better part of an afternoon chatting about the business and philosophical aspects of a happy composing career, with composer and The Portfolio Composer podcast host Garrett Hope. Their wide-ranging conversation over bourbon in Alex's San Juan Island, WA living room, is posted in two March 2016 parts, and you can hear it above.

Alex was the inaugural guest for composer Tobenski's new series, Music Publishing Podcast. Despite some technical issues with a Hangout connection that apparently had Alex reaching for her snorkel, she and Dennis had an excellent conversation about the business of being a busy composer.

Alex returned to MPP to join co-hosts Dennis Tobenski and mezzo-soprano Megan Ihnen for a discussion about the wide range of creative commissioning techniques available to performers and composers. Click to hear Alex's Plan A,B,C,D and beyond!

Alex appears in three of director Michael Stillwater's documentary films: Shining Night, Beyond the Fear of Singing, and In Search of the Great Song. Click below to listen to a short excerpt from the latter, filmed at Alex's home on San Juan Island, WA. and scored with her piece BELOW. Alex shares her thoughts about how the sea inspires her muses.

Purchase a copy, or download:

Add some algae to your life and buy a disc or a download:

Alex is one of six co-authors of the new book, The Horizon Leans Forward...Stories of Courage, Strength, and Triumph of Underrepresented Communities in the Wind Band Field, released by GIA Publications December 2020.

Edited by conductor Erik Kar Jun Leung (Oregon State University), the book includes Ms. Shapiro's chapter, Reaching Out and Bringing Women In, along with those from composer Jodie Blackshaw and conductors Alfred L. Watkins, Robert Taylor (University of British Columbia), Courtney Snyder (University of Michigan), and Erik Leung, each of whom address perspectives of women, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA2S+ composers and conductors of the past and present.

Additionally, the publication includes a notable annotated bibliography of works by underrepresented composers. The six co-authors have done several compelling Zoominars about the book contents, and those links can be found in the diversity and includion section, HERE:

To read more about the book and to order a hard copy, click HERE:

To order the digital copy, click HERE:

Alex is the author of "Releasing a Student's Inner Composer," one of the chapters in the 2013 book, "Musicianship: Composing in Band and Orchestra." The book, edited by Clint Randles and David Stringham, is published by GIA Publications.

Alex's brain is about 8,000 words lighter after writing an extensive two-part article echoing the clinic presentations on new media in the band world that she gave at The 2013 Midwest Clinic and the 2014 Texas Music Educators Association Conference. The essay, titled The e-Frontier: Music, Multimedia, Education, and Audiences in the Digital World, appears in the June and September 2014 issues of the magazine of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles, WASBE World.

Read the full article,
offered with the kind permission of WASBE.

Offering challenging thoughts on the new digital paradigm, the internet, free speech and the meaning of net neutrality to all artists, a number of Alex's articles have been published in essays for the online magazine NewMusicBox.
A few favorites:

Read The Economy of Exposure:
Publicity as Payment? here

Read What I Learned About My Tiny Business
From Paramount Pictures here

Read As Important as the Printing Press:
Net Neutrality and Artists' Freedom here

Greg Sandow is the author of an insightful blog on the future of classical music, and invited Alex to be a guest blogger in March 2013. Click here to see what she has to say about the fun of living in the middle of nowhere and being in the center of everywhere, in an essay titled E-ing there

And without question, the very best resource for Alex's musings can be found in the decade-worth of pixels and photographs of her blog, Notes from the Kelp.

Concurrent with the premiere of her second symphony, SUSPENDED, commissioned by Kappa Kappa Psi and Tau Beta Sigma for their July 2021 National Intercollegiate Band, Alex was made an Honorary Brother of both fraternities, and awarded Tau Beta Sigma's "Outstanding Service to Music Award".

Sheet Music Plus features Alex and her career in a wide-ranging piece for its September 2019 Take Note blog. Read about the connection between music, activism, multimedia, and yes, even Beethoven, by clicking here.

Minnesota Public Radio's Your Classical division created a Top Ten list of wind band composers, to expand the public's knowledge of the genre. Alex [randomly!] came in at #2 after Sousa. You can peruse the list by clicking here.

Composers Datebook is a daily two-minute syndicated radio program produced by American Public Media in association with the American Composers Forum. The series highlights moments in music history of the past and the present, and its February 11th "on this date" segments feature Alex Shapiro and the anniversary of the premiere of her sonata for tuba and piano titled Music for Two Big Instruments. You can listen to the amusing description by clicking here and then clicking the "play" arrow at the top of the page.

COVID-19 has brought many challenges to university music programs, but in the face of limitations there are also positive opportunities. Rather than try to make something as precious as live ensemble performance exist in a format not yet designed for it, Alex gave some thought to what an online connection for students in band and orchestra can uniquely provide.

At the invitation of the University of Washington's Director of Bands Timothy Salzman, Alex came up with a syllabus for the students that reflects our current reality. Click to read the article about the successful project, Putting the E- in E-nsemble.

Between March and December 2020, Alex oversaw the curriculum with more than 30 universities and high schools, and the free syllabus continues to be used by educators at all levels, to bring the project to even more music students who discover an inner creativity they hadn't realized they possess.

If you would like to see the syllabus, just email Alex and she'll be happy to get it to you. She's available as a consultant, or to help you customize the course for your students and to Zoom in to work with them!

Joining 11 of her peers, Alex co-founded the Creative Repertoire Initiative to encourage composers to create adaptable works for ensembles with varying personnel and rehearsal circumstances.

For this world in constant flux, Alex's 2020 electroacoustic work, PASSAGES, offers a calming, centering, meditative, and encouraging outlook for any combination of instruments. Each cellular phrase sounds beautiful whether stacked or exposed, and played with any of the chords in the accompaniment track. It's never quite the same piece twice, because musicians make random choices from a selection of melodies and rhythms of varying difficulty. The music is especially well suited for musicians recording themselves during distance learning sessions, and even for soloists wishing to improvise!

During the same period during which Alex composed her oh-so-very sophisticated second symphony SUSPENDED, she also composed her first piece for beginning music students, a 3-part plus percussion flex work titled COUNT TO TEN. Why? Because she believes that all living composers should be writing primers for the music of their time, by participating in the educational process and providing fresh, creative repertoire that can further inspire the students to keep playing!

Toddlers can count to ten, so surely, middle schoolers can count to nine! And once a young student can count to nine, meters in 5 and 7 won't be daunting. For a closer look at this unusual piece with an optional and REALLY GROOVY accompaniment track, click HERE:

KITCHEN SYNC was composed in 2021 as a very flexible stand-alone miniature that is also one fifth of a collective offering of similarly micro-length pieces titled SUITE TREATS. Composers & Schools Executive Director Lisa Oman and conductor and Creative Repertoire Initiative co-founder Robert Ambrose invited five founding members of CRI to add their voices to a compilation of brief, medium difficulty ensemble works designed to be highly adaptable.

Alex, along with composers Brian Balmages (Focal Point), Jennifer Jolley (Neoncore), Pete Meechan (Lullaby), and Frank Ticheli (Moving On), were each paired with high school wind band directors in different parts of the U.S., and engaged with the students online to come up with a fresh take on what can be accomplished musically-- in only about a minute.