A delightful third episode with composer Michael Shapiro

Welcome to the latest episode of Harmonious World, in which I interview musicians about how their music helps make the world more harmonious.

This episode features an extended conversation with my dear friend Michael Shapiro, who I wouldn't know if it wasn't for an introduction from Crossover Media's Amanda back at the start of Harmonious World. As well as our previous two interviews in 2020 and 2021, I have spent time with Michael in Milan (where his Frankenstein score was performed) and several times in London. His musical passion, intellect and wit come across - I hope - in this latest episode.

Alongside our conversation, you can hear extracts from Michael's flute concerto In The Light Of The Sun , performed by my previous guest Stathis Karapanos.

Thank you for listening to Harmonious World. Please rate, review and share: click on the link and subscribe to support the show.

Don't forget the Quincy Jones quote that sums up why I do this: "Imagine what a harmonious world it would be if every single person, both young and old, shared a little of what he is good at doing."

Transcript

Hilary 0:25

Hello and welcome to a very special edition of Harmonious World. Because this episode features Michael Shapiro, who has become a very dear friend of the podcast and of me and my family actually. I first interviewed Michael in October 2020, then again in April 2021. I then saw him in Milan in November 2021. He has introduced me to a number of important people, including Malcolm Singer, with whom I did my first ever live interview. Jeff Atmagian, who I did another one with. Danae Sante Vlasse, who I've interviewed twice. And then especially Flortist Stathis Karapanos, who you can hear right now playing. Michael's In the Light of the Sun, Flute Concerto. This is movement one, which is just beautiful, and which I actually heard recorded live on the 24th of April this year. So this is an absolute joy to speak to Michael again. And I hope you enjoy listening to our conversation. Oh, it's so good to see you.

Michael 2:24

Oh Diane, good to see you. Welcome to Chapacor.

Hilary 2:28

Thank you once more for joining me for Harmonious World. And I have to say, on the podcast, I want to thank you officially for inviting me, first of all, to hear Danae's recording of Mythologies 2, which was stunning. But then particularly to the recording with Stathis of your flute concerto. It was amazing. Both of those things were such an amazing experience. So thank you.

Michael 3:02

Well, we're not done yet.

Hilary 3:04

I know. Well, we've got another date in November, haven't we?

Michael 3:07

We sure do. And she is, as you know, one of the greatest singers in the world.

Hilary 3:12

Absolutely.

Michael 3:13

And what a wonderful human being. So it's going to be really something.

Hilary 3:17

So tell my audience who it is and what they're what she's doing.

Michael 3:21

Yes, well, the great news is I am going to be recording my Dublin songs based on James Joyce poetry. Six of the 12 have been orchestrated for Soprano and Orchestra. And Let Me Live from The Slave, my new opera, which is a full evening, uh, based on a libretto of Hannah McDermott. And the singer is the great Mia Persson, who is a Swedish, uh, British soprano, extremely well known throughout the world. And uh the great news is we're doing it again with the Royal Philharmonic. Um, major thanks to uh Ian McClay and Eleanor Clements, uh, who are just the most magnificent people. And uh we'll be recording it again at the uh Angel Studio, now known as Abbe Road Institute on Upper Street in London, my new home. Uh it's just, you know, it's it's it's a dream because my Dublin songs I wrote in my 20s, orchestrated maybe in my 30s or 40s, and um, but they're they're major lead leader, and they've been done all over the world by with piano and recorded uh by Ariane Grife in a very wonderful recording in the piano version. But the orchestration was only performed once uh by the Chapaco Orchestra before I conducted it uh years ago, and uh I've always wanted to record them in with a special kind of singer that Mia Persson is that has this incredible Mozartean, you know, Strauss voice, very pure, and she really knows how to dig into the into the poetry. And the the poetry of of James Joyce is extraordinary.

Hilary 5:14

It is indeed, yeah, yeah.

Michael 5:16

It's from uh Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is one of the songs. Ding Dong the Castle Bell, and you know, Oh Cool is the Valley Now, and all these great poems from his chamber music. And the Society of Authors gave me permission years ago to set them, and they've been done all over the world and in their you know, high voice and piano version, and also a tenor did them in Germany years ago. But I've never had a recording of the orchestral version, and now that I have this wonderful relationship with the royal philomonic, uh I felt that I must record them. In addition, Let Me Live is the aria that Mia is going to sing from The Slave, my new opera, which is my my magnum opus, as it were. Two and a half hour opera. This is from the sixth scene of the second act, right? In which our heroine, Sarah, who was born Wanda, a Polish Roman Catholic woman, now hiding out in a Jewish village, playing a mute because they don't want to, she doesn't want to expose herself. 1652 Poland, you can imagine. And she's pregnant, and she's about to give birth, and she sings to God, Let Me Live, because she's fearing the alternative, right? And it's very, very profound, very simply stated, kind of a hymn. And uh well, she's going to do the most magnificent job. So we start rehearsing when she comes to New York. She's singing uh the fiolets de lead of Strauss with the New York Philharmonic at the beginning of November. When she's here, we'll be rehearsing, and then we'll rehearse again in London when I get there, and then we record on the 18th. And you'll be there in the booth.

Hilary 7:12

I will, I will. It's such an honor, it's such a great place to be. And and for the flute concerto, you gave me the score, you lent me the score to, and that was that was lovely to be able to to see to visual, to visualize what I could hear. It was just amazing. And and as soon as I was able to hear the finished version of that, it just blew me away. And just to play that, you know, to have that that it's such a connection. And of course, I interviewed Stathis just a few weeks ago, so he's been on the podcast now. And so I'm that I'm feeling all of these connections around the world and across this music, which is stunning.

Michael 7:58

Thank you. The flute concerto, I consider, you know, it's called in the light of the sun because it's a very bright piece, as it were. It's full of melody and the instruments just go in and out of each other with Stathis just soaring.

Hilary 8:13

Yeah.

Michael 8:14

But I I considered the work, it's interesting how its derivation. I had composed the first act of The Slave, but Hannah had not yet gotten me the libretto for the second act. So uh, and Stathis had asked me to write a concerto for him. So I then wrote a concerto in less than three months, soup to nuts. It just flew right out of me. And I consider that piece my Mozart Schubert piece in a way, because it's very pure, it states what it needs to state, and um he just does such wonderful things with it. Hillary, you like this fact too. I'm very particular, as you know. We know it we've been quite a long time.

Hilary 9:02

Yeah.

Michael 9:03

But when I encounter musicians of Stathis Karopanos' level and the level of the royal philomonic. Although I may say, you know, let's do this or let's do that. But I let the musicians come to me rather than me impose something, and that is a total joy because Stathis did things in my loot concerto that I had not imagined. The way he would bend the tones, where he would add a little more vibrato and then more vibrato, or go the opposite direction. The things he did with Tempi with with Quavers versus what I had written, which I thought of the quavers should be a little more regular, and he would speed up in little ways, and then he'd come back. This rubato he would do. But you know what? I let him do it. Why? Because it's so musical. I don't tell you how to breathe. No, not my right. I don't tell myself how to breathe. I hope I breathe. I I mean it's a pity this guy's not breathing anymore. Oh, absolutely. Such a long time ago that he passed, 1791. You know, yeah, and you know, I I adore the sound of the voice. So when I wrote a concerto, I thought of the flute as a voice and a singing voice, and that's the way Stathis plays. Now, the great thing about an orchestra with these London players like the Royal Philharmonic, with whom I've now become friends, we just breathe together, and they did little things in the accompaniment of Stathis in that flute concerto. Yeah, I just let them go. You know, when the when the bassoon goes, oh, that bassoon moment was incredible. Well, you're you're a Woodwind player, you know. And it what these I had all the principal players, yeah, you know, in that room. They all want that came, you know. And they do these little things: the the the oboist, the clarinetist, the other flutist, the trumpet, the horn, the French horn, you know, and then the strings. You know, we had a we had a guest concert concertmaster leader, but Andrew was leading the seconds, and then we had the wonderful violas and the celley with Jonathan and the double bass, but these are all principles, these are most magnificent players, and then everybody else, you know, is major players in the Royal Philharmonics. So if I breathe with them and we have a community of love and and giving, they give back and they breathe with me. And it's just so we could lay down the three movements of the concerto in one session, and they hadn't really not seen the music before, unless they had it electronically, you know, but they didn't have the parts until they walked in. But they're such primo players that they can sight read and jump right into the story of the piece. Now it there it's a little different when you do songs because there is text. Oh, cool is the valley now, and their love shall we go. For many a choir is singing now. We're loved at some time go. I mean James Joyce.

Hilary 12:50

Yeah.

Michael 12:50

Just it's very so they'll have the story sung by this uh immaculate, exquisite voice coming from here. They'll have the whole concept presented to them as they're playing. But for example, the first song that we're doing is uh from the portion of the artist as a young man. Ding dong at the castle bell. Farewell my mother.

Hilary 13:30

Yeah.

Michael 13:31

So the strings initially, the violins, first and seconds, are going Do la do la do la do la do. So all equal sound. They come in at different entrances. They the the the principal first, principal second are doing a harmonic, so you have a continual wash of sound, but then underneath the rest of the violins are going do la C A Do La Do La. Smore slower than that. So, how do you what do you do as a creative artist, performing artist? How do you create and it's got to be equal? And then the French horn comes in on the F sharp, you know, the the sound of the bell, right?

Hilary 14:30

Yeah, yeah.

Michael 14:31

Then we have Susie, who's magnificent on the harp, going G sharp, D sharp, low notes. So I've been thinking about this. How am I going to do this in the time allotted to me in a three-hour session with a break to get them to go? You know, this kind of sticky tone, these tenuto tones, tenuti, you know.

Hilary 14:55

Yeah.

Michael 14:57

So you think of how does it get bowed? If they go down, even as great as these players are, you can hear a slight kick. And it's a touch which is similar to what is in the Sibelia's Second Symphony. Da da da da da da da da da da da. So, how do you get that? You get it with a bow action calling called Lure, L-O-U-R-E, Xant Egu. So it's literally the bow is going like this, kind of sideways, almost sticking to the string. These are the things you have to think about. And when you deal with high-quality players like these, yeah, they'll all do lure absolutely perfectly. And I will say to them before we start, lure on the on the do la do la do la, very slow, and the tempo is da da di now, each of those notes has to be perfectly equale, equal.

Hilary 16:10

Yeah.

Michael 16:12

But you have to think about these things before you walk into the theater. Or into the rehearsal.

Hilary 16:18

You've got to have in your head what you want it to sound like, and then you've got to verbalize that so that they will understand. And but because they're such amazing musicians, they will, as soon as you say it, they'll get it.

Michael 16:34

You know what's great about great players and great singers? If you tell them what you believe to be your path, they'll come with you down the path.

Hilary 16:46

Yeah.

Michael 16:48

You know what they say often with, especially orchestral musicians, they say, just show us or tell us what you want, and we'll do it. It's the instrumentalists or the soloists or the conductors who don't emote that in word, eye, motion, that then presents an issue of communication. But I've done this for such a long time that I think about these things. So before I go in, I'll have a plan of action, which I'll relate to them mostly through motion, but sometimes words. I don't like talking too much. As you remember, I just work.

Hilary 17:32

Yeah.

Michael 17:33

There's a problem, we stop, we start again. I don't like talking, it wastes too much time. And I don't like producers stopping me and saying, Oh, we'll get back to you in five minutes.

Hilary 17:44

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael 17:46

Which can present difficulty because the orchestras, orchestras love conductors who don't talk too much. Claudio Bato never talked. Carion talked a little too much. Chelabadache was ridiculous. That's all he did was talk. I don't believe in it. I believe in working with them and emoting the hand and the eye have to relate what you want. So, as the composer of these pieces, yeah, you know, I can I have a definition. I'm trying to get across. I know with these amazing people, it's going to be a joy.

Hilary 18:32

Yeah, yeah, you really have got the cream of the cream. We we talk about, you know, why do filmmakers, composers, you know, why do people come to London? And they come to London because there's such creativity here. It's amazing.

Michael 18:49

We have it in New York, we have it in New York as well, and in Chicago and Philadelphia, and LA and uh San Francisco and other cities like Buffalo and Louisville. The problem is we have the issue of cost. And in the states, the cost because I think of unit unionization has gotten very, very difficult. So for a lot of us, I mean, this is the third British orchestra I've recorded with. You know, I recorded with the CBSO, the City Birmingham, and with the BBC. Yes, part of. And uh now this will be my third recording with the RPO, and uh it's just easier. I mean, I have some friends who go to uh the Czech Republic to Prague and so forth, but and uh some to Germany. But I find that working now with the RPO is for me a complete dream, yeah.

Hilary 19:45

Every absolutely so when we when I la when I saw you last, you were finishing the slave. And tell me a bit more about that. Tell me a bit more about because it's based on the on the book, isn't it?

Michael 20:00

It's based on the book by Isaac Besheva Singer, who won the Nobel Prize in 1978 for his literature. He is one of the greatest authors of the 20th century. And when I was 20 years old, I read The Slave, and I said, this has to be an opera. In 1971, how do you send a letter to Isaac Besheva Singer, who was pretty famous in those days? He had just sold uh the Yentl stories to Barbara Streisand. So, how did I get to him? I looked in the phone book, that's where he was. Really? Those were the days. Yeah, I have a similar story with Boris Karlov when I was 10, but that's a whole nother story. But here we go. So I I I picked, I saw there his address, his phone number. So I wrote a letter to him that I'd love to, you know, I'm a composer, I'd like to have the rights of slave to make it into an opera. He wrote me back. Dear Mr. Shapiro, I don't know anything about opera. You may even be a famous man. Would you please speak to Lila, who's my agent at Ferrar Strauss Drew, the publishing house? She could she'll help.

Hilary 21:15

Right.

Michael 21:16

So I contacted her, she was lovely, and she says, I'm so sorry, but Paramount Pictures bought the rights. So during the pandemic, I reached out to the estate, to the trustees through their publishing agent, a woman in New York, and she said, Sure, you can have the rights. Here's what our fees are, and blah, blah, blah. So it had gone through years of lapsed rights with Paramount and other people who had bought the rights. And I got the rights. I have a contract. So I got the rights. And if we make any money from this thing, it's split three ways Hannah McDermott, me, and the estate of Isaac Besheva Singer. So the story is very interesting because it's very relevant to now. It takes place in 1648, Poland, in which there is a massacre led by the Cossacks who come out of the steppes of Russia to kill the Jews of southern Poland and also nobility for what they thought was anti-Russian activity, which is nonsense. It's known as the Smielnitsky massacres, and it's a kind of an early Holocaust. A hundred thousand Jews were slaughtered. It's from the exact area that my grandmother is from. The exact area and the exact area that Isaac Bashev's Singer is from for the story. So Jacob, our hero, who's a scholarly man with a wife and two young kids, is manacled and sold into slavery. And he's not sure what happens to his wife and his kids. He's sold into slavery and he's put up on a mountainside of a Polish tavern keeper, who turns out to be a very good guy, not surrounded by some good people. However, the tavern keeper, Jan Bezik's daughter, Wanda, goes up to the mountainside to visit this studious man who's now a slave, taking care of a cow and scything wheat, who after four years becomes kind of a macho man. He's as strong as could be. She falls in love with him. She is Wanda, a Roman Catholic widow. It's 1652 Poland, folks.

Hilary 23:34

Yeah.

Michael 23:36

So what happens? So the whole story that Singer portrays in this epic novel, the first half is the Polish village where she lives and where he is the slave. How he leaves the Polish village and what happens to her, how he comes back to rescue her, and how they flee for their lives. Because a Christian married to a Jew or having any relationship is death for everybody.

Hilary 24:02

Yeah.

Michael 24:04

They get to a reconstructed Jewish village that's coming out of the whole disastrous massacre, what we call a pogrom, that's being rebuilt. And they go in there, but she has to act as a mute. I have a mute soprano in an opera, right? This will group plenty of opportunity. This is in 1652. And she's acting as as Sarah, the wife of Jacob. He becomes the head of the village because the existing head is kind of like my grandfather, a real creep.

Hilary 24:37

I can say that.

Michael 24:39

And the Lord of the Manor and the Lady of the Manor take him in, and they find him fascinating because he's so smart. And they compare the liturgy of the Catholic Church with the liturgy. And you know, why you've waited all these years, you've seen your children destroyed. How can you keep on going? And he says, basically, this is what I was taught. And she's trying to learn the Jewish version to compare it with her Catholic background. So what's the what's the image of all of us? And she dies in childbirth before she dies in childbirth. She sings the song, Let Me Live, which Mia is recording with me. Right. So, and then there's an epilogue when they get back together again, kind of like Wuthering Heights. So, but what is he doing here? And why is it relevant? It's relevant because my story, how I was born from parents who had one version of whatever, cannot overwhelm or be dictatorial to other people whose stories may be different. And they can't do the same to me. It is so relevant for now, and it's relevant for thousands of years. I can't understand it. You and I are dear friends, we will always be dear friends. We never say, well, Hillary's story is better than Michael's story, therefore, there must be opposition in us.

Hilary 26:16

No, no, absolutely.

Michael 26:21

It's all gonna decay and fall off, and we'll be skeletons if we're lucky. What are we talking about? And there are many people who are atheists, don't believe in any of these traditions, or people that you know. I have family that doesn't, and there I have other family more observant. I don't care. I go into the Church of England, I go into Roman Catholic churches. Yeah, I feel very much at home. My friend is the music director at the Gloucester Cathedral, which I love. Yeah, I'm not Anglican, but I have total respect for it and loving love for it. I go, you know, even song to me is a revelation. Revelation. All I'm trying to, because they're doing bird and they're doing the Elizabethan composers, and I just sit there.

Hilary 27:15

Yeah.

Michael 27:15

My point is, and it's Singer's point, that the love between two people is more important and more binding and crucial to civilization than anything else. So the great operas, and I'm gonna talk to you about the difficulty of opera, but the the great operas, like this guy's operas, yeah, are all about those kinds of things. And the marriage of Figaro obviously casts, you know, the the royals versus the servants and so forth, what Beaumarchais did and which he picked up with Da Ponte. But here's the thing about opera, which I find fascinating. There are only a handful of composers and librettists in the history of opera that can do it.

Hilary 28:06

Yeah.

Michael 28:07

And why? Number one, the libretto must be very strong, and it must have a raison d'être or reason to be. A composer like Schubert and a composer like Schumann, great song composers who could create in their Winterreis or Dichte Liebe worlds, could not write opera. If you look at the Zongspiel's, he wrote 10 of them or something, Schubert, they don't work. But this guy, who wasn't much of a song composer, but he was an amazing opera composer. Why? Here it is. When we first met, Hillary, when I was on your show the first time, our music was formal. Your music inside of you, yeah. Music inside of me. Now, when I see you, I can't stop hugging and kissing. Because we love you so much, and you know, we love your family, we love everything about you and what you've done, and what you do, and for you as a human being. So, what is my music now with Hillary and your music with me?

Hilary 29:17

Yeah, it's completely different, completely different.

Michael 29:20

So, here we go. So, we have Wanda, Sarah, and Jacob moving through this 1652 horror show on both sides, where everyone is crazy, but on both sides, sometimes there are some people that are wonderful, and they're trying to do better. So, how do we move people across the stage? And that here's the rub: there are very few composers in opera history who've understood how to write for the stage. Songs, which I've written, dozens of them, are self-composed squares, they're they're in insular, and in those in the poetry of Ding Dong the Castle Bell, Joyce is portraying something. But when he's portraying in the marriage of figure, it was seen when the two women are writing a letter. How does he do it? He's thinking of how he's moving them across the action with music that portrays in a subtle, subtle way what's going on in the drama. In Aid, it's so clear, also incredible canvas, right? Yeah, Don Carlos, Votzek, in uh you know, Billy Budd of Ben Britton. I mean, these guys knew how to do it, but not all composers can do it. Our great Beethoven, who wrote amazing stuff in Fidelio, had a very weak libretto. It doesn't really work. But there's scenes like you know when Floristan is in the dark, or when the uh the uh prisoners chorus comes out that are really first rate stuff, but he wasn't Mozart, he wasn't Ozzy Fantute, which is just you know Champagne and caviar, or you know, uh uh Don Giovanni, which is just incredible, right? So there's always the story of Wagner, which I won't get into, it could take us uh 10 different stories, you know, yeah, 10 hours to discuss, because it Wagner Wagnerian opera is problematic, but in the great composers, Mozart Verde, you know, this it's just something about it. So you learn from that, and I'm hoping that the slave has the same impact, especially with this story that Hannah has taken from Isaac Singer, which is just a revelation. And it does come from my part of Europe, which my grandmother is from the exact town where Isaac Beshevis's grandfather was the town rabbi, and his mother, Isaac Singer's mother, was born.

Hilary 32:16

Wow.

Michael 32:17

One of my cousins went to school with Isaac Singer's older brother.

Hilary 32:21

I mean, that's insane.

Michael 32:24

It's insane. Now we're we're we're in America since 1906, so it's been a long time here. But my family was in that part of Poland for at least a thousand years.

Hilary 32:34

Yeah.

Michael 32:35

So um after I'm with you in in DC, in DC, listen to me, in London, we're with we're flying to Warsaw for uh to be with uh uh uh Sir David Houtney and his new production of And the Retzki's the Black Mask at the Polish National Opera. So I should be very interested to go back and see what see some of this and be with Sir David as his production. I'm really looking forward to it.

Hilary 33:02

Yeah.

Michael 33:03

This is this is the life, you know, and I very much want to see the the slave on the stage.

Hilary 33:10

Yeah, absolutely.

Michael 33:12

You'll know, I'll tell you.

Hilary 33:14

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I if you remember, I flew to Milan to see the Frankenstein, which was which was very special. It was it was just amazing to to see that and I and I want to see it again, obviously.

Michael 33:29

Um we're hoping that it'll be done in it's being done six different places this coming October here in the States. I have a new agent in Berlin, so we're hoping to get it back in on the continent. And I have three very prominent performances in the next few years, which I'll let you know about here in the States with major orchestras which I'll be conducting. So um, you know, it's work, work, work, work, work.

Hilary 33:56

Absolutely, it's fantastic, and I'm I'm particularly excited um to see The Slave performed because since we met originally online, um, you know, like this, that's been part of our conversation. You've mentioned that you were doing it or you're gonna start it, or you know, Hannah was doing the libretto and that sort of thing. So I feel like I've lived that journey with you. So to see it performed and hear it, and and I am so excited to hear even one song of it in November, just be amazing.

Michael 34:35

You know what I want at the end? And I'm a very political type in the sense of many of my pieces have a re have a reason. And the reason is much like this guy, and Verdi, I very and Puccini, I very much want my music to have a purpose. I mean, Ben Britton too. There is a reason under the sun to do what we do. My next piece, which will be a cello concerto written for a very prominent celloist, to be announced, a prominent Christian, is called The World to Come.

Hilary 35:13

Wow.

Michael 35:14

Wow, and it's all about where do we go from here, at least in some traditions. And I'm going to put together all the traditions in one you in one piece to be played by a cellist and a great orchestra. So that's my next concerto, and I do want to write another opera very soon after this, but again, with you're faced with the issue of also getting it done.

Hilary 35:40

Yeah.

Michael 35:41

When you do an orchestral work, and I'm a performer, I'm a conductor, I can do it myself. I don't have to wait for anyone else to figure out how does it, you know, work into a season or a program or this or that. And I do believe that we have now a new kind of delivery system. It used to be that concerts, when I was a kid, you know, you sneak into Carnegie Hall through Carnegie Recital Hall, and you go see Stokovsky conduct, which I did six times. It was a way of sneaking in, which we did for free. So, but you know, Stokovsky, Karion, Bernstein, Rubenstein, Horowitz, Milstein. I heard all of these people on surmay. I heard all of them when I was a kid. Because they all came through New York. Like they would have come through London. You would have had the opportunity to hear these people. And it was really a great thing. But that was the, I mean, they did record, but they recorded mostly for posterity. Some recorded more than others. But now we have something called the iPhone.

Hilary 36:53

Yeah.

Michael 36:54

Or, you know, some other version of the phone where people are downloading. They're not necessarily going to concerts anymore. In the States, unlike the Royal Albert Hall, which you and I went with our spouses to hear the Verde Requiem full house, that crazy beautiful place.

Hilary 37:15

Yeah.

Michael 37:16

I don't think you could fill an auditorium of 5,000 seats here in the United States very easily. People don't go to the events and they're having a problem. So, what is not a problem are alternate delivery systems. So, for if I didn't record my music, and I'm working, as you know, very eagerly every year to put out at least two major what we we used to call CDs, but recordings, you know, which are downloaded, downloadable on YouTube and Spotify, Apple Music, Prime Music, Deezer, you know, I have all of these sites they go to internationally. I'm on 51 playlists. I've had 400,000 streams in the past year. Could I say I've had 400,000 people sitting in concert halls listening to my music? No.

Hilary 38:11

No.

Michael 38:12

So when you were there for the flute concerto, it's that way. It's been heard by 20,000 people already.

Hilary 38:20

Wow.

Michael 38:22

I mean, could I have this happen? So you'll see delivery systems is the way we have to think. Now, theater is a different thing. When the slave is done, I will fully have it videoed so that people can see the movie, The Slave.

Hilary 38:39

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael 38:41

So, what was what we have to think about in our state, state right now, composers. How do you get the word out? What's the delivery system? And when I go and play billiards with this guy in the world to come, how's it going to remain? If or will it remain? So I think of my teachers. I think of Ellie Sigmeister and Vincent Persicetti. I think of David Diamond and uh William Schumann and Lenny and Copeland. I mean, people I knew, Peter Menon. Many of them, the music is not being done, except in certain circumstances. Some of them made the error, Copeland not, but some of them made the error of not recording. So there's no vision of what they did. Um, and it's a it's a damn pity. Um some people, Gerard Schwartz here is a terrific person of resurrecting a lot of this music, and he's done it for many years, but he's alone. There aren't that many that have done it. So I'm lucky in the sense that I'm a school conductor and pianist, and I have a lifetime of conducting the standard rep, Beethoven symphonies, Mozart symphonies, Brahm Symphony, Devorje, you know, Requiems, Opera. You know, I've done a lot. So when I get in front of the Royal Philharmonic, an orchestra of this incredible talent, or the CBSO or the whatever, BBC, and the orchestra's here. I know what to do, but I only know what to do because I've had decades of experience doing this guy and uh and the others. So, but now in my life, I tend to focus mostly, unless I'm doing you know, music of friends, I'm doing mostly my own things just to get them down, to show people, you know, what is this, what is the how do we phrase this symphony, how do we phrase this concerto or this opera?

Hilary 40:49

Yeah, yeah.

Michael 40:51

But you know, not always. I have good friends who do my stuff too, which is always uh, you know, wonderful experience.

Hilary 40:57

So yeah. Um I what what I think would be interesting, I I look forward to hearing another flautist doing your flute concerto. Um, you know, I don't know who could do it the way that a statist did it, but there'll be somebody who can do it differently, do it their way.

Michael 41:17

This is always the hope. All of my music is now um published yeah, with Universal Universal Edition Wien, which is Universal Edition Vienna. Yeah, the publisher of Gustav Mauler, Ricardo Strauss, Schoenberg, Berg, Weber, and a lot of other people, Quitweil, Boulash, Stockhausen, but many, many people. And now me, and uh, it's gonna be there. Yeah, they're they're the most wonderful people imaginable. They're and they they produce the most beautiful scores, as you've seen when we did the flute control. Yeah, but um, yes, I would love it to be played by others. Right now, it's Stathis' piece. I wrote it for him, and he will be doing it elsewhere with maybe me not conducting, which would be a gem of a thing to happen. He very much wants to do it because he hasn't had this experience, I don't think, very much, of having a composer for him.

Hilary 42:15

No, absolutely, and I think he wrote very much when I spoke to him when I interviewed him, he was very much kind of proud of this remarkable piece. I mean, it's just beautiful, really is.

Michael 42:30

It's it's catered for him, but he did his own things with it. And when I say it's my Schubert Mozart piece, it's just jam-packed with melodic line.

Hilary 42:42

It is, it is, yeah.

Michael 42:44

I'd like to talk about melody for a second.

Hilary 42:47

Okay.

Michael 42:48

My first teacher, Siegmeister, Ellie Siegmeister, who was a student at Boulanger and gave me five years of Boulanger training, said that I was a natural melodist, which I to this day think is the greatest compliment. Because the best composers in history have been great melodists all through history, to this day. Yeah, and I look rhythmic, harmonic, timbre, choice of instruments, line, counterpoint, view, canon, what all the things we learn, they're all important, but the average listener hangs on to great melodic line. And I'm not talking about Rachmanin of Great Melodic Line because that's his melodic line. Magnificent, right? Why are the Rachmanin of concerities still filling holes? Not only the virtuosic wonderful things in the way he could orchestrate and blend, but it comes directly. Directly from who this man was. So my melodic line comes directly from where what I am. It's my melodic line. It's not Rachmanino, it's not Mozart, it's not Wagner, it's not Puccini, it's my melodic line. But it's melody. Some people say, you know, why is Verdi, why are the Verdi operas still so popular? There's a reason. They've got great tunes. This guy was an incredible melody writer, total natural. And he could knock it out so fast. But his melody, especially in the operas, was all catered to the character that is in the DaPonte drama. And it varies, you know. Don Giovanni has a different melody in him than LaParello does. You gotta think of these things. So you know Jacob sings a certain way. Hillary speaks a certain way. I speak a certain way. You breathe differently than I breathe, but we we're both humans, we breathe.

Hilary 45:01

Yeah.

Michael 45:02

Why do you why do you why do you teach? Why do you have the harmonious world? And the whole title of Harmonious World is to me magnificent. Because isn't that what we want?

Hilary 45:13

Yeah. It's that's uh that's that's all it that's all there is, really, isn't it? I mean, you know, every time I talk to uh musicians all around the world, that's what they're saying, that's what we're all striving for. Not not everybody, clearly, but you know.

Michael 45:32

I think we have to stand up and overwhelm the darkness.

Hilary 45:37

I agree, I absolutely agree.

Michael 45:40

And we overwhelm it with the love that you and I certainly have for each other and for what we do, and the love for the creation of music and being creative. Creativity is purely the best thing we can do and in and not destroy the beauty of of life. So when I sit and listen to Adrian doing Evensong in the Gloucester Cathedral, I'm ecstatic. It's not my tradition. Why not?

Hilary 46:17

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Michael 46:20

So this is when I walk into a rehearsal room or to a room in front of musicians and I'm doing my things and trying to get them to understand what I am needed to impart. The higher talent that they have, the quicker they get to the get to the to the vision. It's like the way you interview. You have a great talent in doing it, so you you can get to the vision, and that's what we try to do together. Get to the vision so we impart this sense of beauty and caring.

Hilary 46:52

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Wow, thank you so much. Honestly, as usual, it's been an absolute joy to talk to you.

Michael 47:02

Wonderful to talk to you always.

Hilary 47:05

It really is, and I I can't wait to see you in uh a month's time in uh in Abbey Road again.

Michael 47:13

It's gonna be great, and uh, with that one wonderful group of players and yeah, all of our family members and other people being there. It's great being there together in this harmonious world, Hillary. Thank you.

Hilary 47:30

I don't really want to speak over this beautiful flute and this beautiful music. Uh, this is the third movement of Michael Shapiro's In the Light of the Sun concerto for flute and orchestra that was recorded in April 2024 at Abbey Road Institute in Islington. I hope you enjoyed listening to my conversation with Michael and enjoy some more of this third movement. But if you get a chance, please do listen to the whole concerto. It's absolutely gorgeous. And take a listen back to my interview with Statis Karapanos a few episodes ago. All the links are in the show notes. And oh by the way, when Michael, it's several times in that conversation, talks about this guy, it's because behind his head in the studio is a picture of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who he constantly refers back to. This guy died in 1791 and still has such an influence on all of us. Thank you for joining me once more, and I hope you have a very, very harmonious world.