MADELEINE SHAPIRO
Cellist
SELECTED PRESS
"I admire Madeleine Shapiro's musicianship and her ability to work with others." John Cage
"Madeleine Shapiro played the cello part with great intensity, admirably holding her own against the battery of percussion.." The New York Times
"Cellist Madeleine Shapiro turned in a superb reading...conjuring up an array of exotic sounds that held together with conviction and purpose." The Washington Post
"Ms. Shapiro succeeded in bringing her audience right into the whispered tremulations and slides of Salvatore Sciarrino's Ai limiti della notte." The New York Times
"Played with great skill and sensitivity..." The Washington Post
"Particularly effective is the end of the work's third movement, 'Desolation,' where icy chords underpin a solo line by cellist Madeleine Shapiro....It's terribly powerful and commandingly delivered..." The Strad
"Plenty to admire: how cellist Madeleine Shapiro could change in an instant from vehement dashes and snap ping pizzicato to hushed floating velvet." The City Paper, Baltimore
PRAISE FOR MADELEINE'S SOLO RECORDINGS
Electricity: works for cello and electronics
"A compilation of works for cello and electronics is a simple enough programming conception, but Madeleine Shapiro has taken it as her central focus and then run a large circle around the point. The resulting disc is a polystylistic collection of pieces that individually push the instrument and technology in unique ways. Taken as a whole, however, the album feels focused and cohesive in a way that classical recordings of mixed authorship rarely do.
@Time Out New York
SoundsNature: works for cello and electronics
"All kinds of things are going on here with this fascinating collection of pieces for cello and electronics. Cellist Madeleine Shapiro is marvelous." CDHotlist (Rick's Pick)
"Shapiro is a dynamic performer, and her passion for the environment is evident in this recording as she brings to life her deep reverence for the nonhuman worlds." the WholeNote
"The final result of this program is positive, as much for the interesting recordings of nature as for Shapiro's cello. It is likely to get us all into the outdoors, where I like to be. Try it!" American Record Guide
"The CD has a wonderful series of works with interesting and varied approaches and sound pallets, carefully arranged in a sequence that feels "right" as one listens straight through (which is highly recommended)." Journal of the International Alliance of Women in Music
"The Axolotl is an American amphibian equipped to live on land, yet never leaves the water. Morton Subotnick's Axolotl mirrors this refusal to change state through it's use of ghost electronics, which generate no sound of their own but steadily alter the amplitude and frequency of cello tones. The music remains acoustic in origin even when it's timbres seem to emerge from some exclusively electronic zone. Soloist Madeleine Shapiro nurtures this ambivalent state, drawing out fine shades of coloration as she energizes those phantom transitions. Four other compositions place her cello in dialogue with sounds sampled from the natural world. Judith Shatin's For the Birds pitches it against a wide spectrum of avian calls, some heavily digitized. Matthew Burtner confronts the cellist with snow crunch and wind gusts from his native Alaska. Shapiro audibly catches her breath as her bow performs a prolonged icy glide. Dart, by UK composer Tom Williams, is a vivid electroacoustic evocation of the fluctuating character of a Devon river, while on Canadian composer Gayle Young's Avalon Shorelines the cello provides an improvised counterpoint to the lap and crash of ocean waves in Newfoundland." The Wire
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