Discipline: Music Composition

Harold Shapero

Discipline: Music Composition
Region: Natick, MA
MacDowell Fellowships: 1942, 1945, 1946, 1947
Harold Samuel Shapero (1920–2013) was an American composer. Shapero's output was prolific in the 1940s and included three piano sonatas, the Sonata for Violin and Piano, and a variety of songs and works for chamber ensembles. His major work was the Symphony for Classical Orchestra, a 45-minute work in four movements. He won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1946. He won the first of his two Fulbright Fellowships in 1948. In 1951 he was a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. That same year, Brandeis University hired Shapero and he later became chairman of the department and founder of its electronic music studio with the day's most advanced synthesizers. He taught at Brandeis for 37 years.

Studios

Van Zorn (formerly Kirby)

Harold Shapero worked in the Van Zorn (formerly Kirby) studio.

Constructed thanks to a bequest from Sarah L. Kirby, Kirby Studio was the last new building to be erected during Mrs. MacDowell’s leadership (1907-1951). The load-bearing masonry walls were laid by local mason Augustus Beaulieu atop a fieldstone foundation. A 1995 renovation preserved the brick fireplace with wooden mantel and…

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