OM MANI PADME HUM is an important Buddhist mantra. Imagine you could hear a group of Buddhists meditating simultaneously.
One movement.

OM MANI PADME HUM - 4 voices

Thoughts are coming and going, bringing strong emotions with them - when they take over, they become powerful like storms or even merciless tornadoes.

Circular Thoughts

Imagine walking in space – the clarity of sound and color, the imponderable sensation, experience the mix of loneliness and the serenity.

Celestial Walk

Blue Serenade

Movements:
I.   Morning Optimism
II.  Day-Dreaming
III. Stormy Night

I composed this quartet for 2 Marimbas, 2 Vibraphones and Crotales in 2021, as part of the Composer Laboratory & Festival program. It is titled Nostalgia, as it is based on improvisations recorded in 1983, when I was living in Haifa, Israel. It brings up reflections about his youth and the time that passed since then. 
The first movement – Morning Energy is based on two main motives, where the second, rhythmic motive is augmented gradually, exulting energy and optimism.
The second movement – Daydreaming, starts with a meditative atmosphere, produced by bowing on the Vibraphone pipes, which becomes emotional and darker towards the end, foreshadowing the next movement. Interesting sound effects are produced by pairing a Marimba with a Vibraphone so that the Marimba produces the initial buildup and the Vibraphone sustains the sound. 
Stormy Night ends the quartet with outburst of energy, evoking a thunderstorm at night, interrupted by a melancholic, blues-like episode and a short stretto.
The work was premiered by the Heartland Marimba quartet in June 2022 in St. Paul, MN. The video recording from the live concert is available in my YouTube channel (search "Alex Shapira - composer").

Mallet Quartet - Nostalgia

Movements:
I.   Abandoned Dreams
II.   Introspection
III.  Self Doubts
IV.  Never Look Back

I composed the first version of this Piano Sonata – In Search of Lost Meaning - in 1977, when he was still in Romania. In 2021 I found the manuscript, improved it and added the last movement. The work is a reflection on the relentless search for meaning, as perspectives change over long periods of time.
Hagai Yodan is an Israeli multidisciplinary artist: pianist, conductor, composer and writer. He recorded this Piano Sonata in February 2022 in Tel-Aviv, Israel.

Piano Sonata #1 - In Search of Lost Meaning

In Search of Lost Meaning | piano - Hagai Yodan

This is a lullaby with a twist...
When I was reading stories to my children, or inventing them (which they preferred), they were sometimes so effective that not only the children were falling asleep...
May your children, grand-children and your Inner Child enjoy it.
For 3 players: 2 Vibraphones and 1 Crotales.

Sleepy Barcarole

This work won the 2023 New Ariel Piano Composition Competition.
I finished the first version of Enmeshed Development in August 2022. 
Enmeshment is a term used in psychology to describe a relationship that is overly connected - when one person tries to meet the other person's needs so badly, that he loses touch with his own needs and feelings.
The work is built around two contrasting motives. Like in long-term relationships, they go through several phases of transformation, until each of them acquires characteristics from the other one – thus the enmeshment. The nine transformations from one phase to the next one follow a fixed set of rules, and are based on a Fibonacci progression. However, in the balance between artistic intuition and structural rigor, I let the human experience have the last word.
This piece is based on a rigorous underlying structure, that serves as a vessel for the musical and emotional content of the work. Contact me if you are interested in the structural details.
However, in the balance between artistic intuition and structural rigor, I let the human experience have the last word.

Enmeshed Development

This work won the Absolute First Prize for Original Composition and the Excellent Musicianship Award at the 2023 Vivaldi International Music Competition. 
Eve - Before Knowing portraits the allegedly idyllic Garden of Eden through Eve’s eyes. The timeline ends just before the dramatic biblical story starts, focusing mainly on the confusing feelings she experiences from the Serpent’s attempts to groom her. For the lyrics, I integrated segments from the poem Garden of Eden by Hazel Durham, with some of my own lines to underline this perspective.
What was Eve’s experience? The place was undeniably beautiful, but was it really serene and safe? Or maybe it only appeared to be so, due to her innocence, as Knowing wasn’t part of her conscience yet.
Beneath the peaceful, innocent appearance, Eve seems progressively torn and confused like a teenager, between the predator Serpent – trying to groom and tempt her, and an intangible G-d, who’s voice she would rarely hear. Hence, presented with the fundamental dilemma of the human condition, Eve is expected to navigate between her instincts and spirituality, alone and completely unprepared. She finds herself bouncing between being in awe at the amazing beauty surrounding her, and the anxiety triggered by the premonition that she will have to say goodbye to Eden one day.
G-d’s presence is suggested through the ethereal purity of the bowed vibraphone sounds, forming timeless melodies, in contrast to the contortions and darkness of some string passages. The work combines ancient musical traditions such as quarter-tone Maqam scales, Jewish liturgic music, Bukharan rhythms and ancient Scandinavian music, to emphasize the universal longing for a “perfect place” and its ephemeral nature.
Movements:
I.                    The Serpent

II.                  Eve

III.                Prayer

IV.               The Serpent’s Plan

V.                 Eve’s Dilemma

Eve - before Knowing

I completed Awakening (for Crotales and 2 Vibraphones 3.5 octaves) in March 2023. It was premiered at the Dallas Mediation Center in May 2023. It is about the sense of Here and Now in the transition from the dream world to reality.
Crotales and Vibraphone are keyboard percussion instruments, played usually with mallets, but using a bow can produce ephemeral sounds of unique purity. I blended these techniques to convey the ambiguity between being asleep and awake, between physical and spiritual awakening, between consciousness and subconscious.

Awakening

I wrote this song without words for my daughter's wedding. It is dedicated to the wonderful couple.

The Joy of Love

Live recording from the Dallas Museum of Biblical Art - September 2023.
Performers: Hubert Pralitz (violin), Bethany Wildes-Pralitz, Mikhail Berestnev.

Heroic Elegy – on Love and Loss is a contemplation about the fragility of the things that are most important in our lives. Think about a moment when you experienced absolute joy – that sensation of not wanting to move, afraid that it might fade away…followed by the premonition that it won’t last. One mistake, one stroke of fate can make us collapse from the inside, when around us the world continues to behave as if nothing happened. 
Heroic Elegy is a call to accept impermanence, face reality with courage and stay course.
I stared working on this piece shortly after I met Hubert and Bethany, at a time when COVID was out of control, the country dangerously divided and my personal life also took an unexpected spin. It is dedicated to these two wonderful musicians, and I’m delighted that they perform it for the first time Dallas, at the Museum of Biblical Art, together with Mikhail.

Heroic Elegy - on Love and Loss

This work won the Platinum Prize for Original Composition and the Excellent Creativity Special Award at the 2023 Saint-Saens International Music Competition.
It was inspired by the wonderful grottoes of Rosh Hanikra, located at the border between Israel and Lebanon, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the mountains of the Galilee. Huge waves constantly clashing against the rocks formed underground tunnels and grottoes.
Legend has it that a young woman from the port of Acco was betrothed against her will to an old, wealthy man in Lebanon. As her father escorted her to Tyre, to meet her intended, the distraught bride leapt into the Mediterranean Sea, near the white cliff of Rosh Hanikra. Since then, in the grottoes, worn deep into the cliff by the crashing waves, her sad song is said to be heard until these days.
The quartet uses fractal and structural elements to blend this gem of nature and history, with my nostalgic memories from multiple visits, in different stages of my life.
Movements:
I. The Shore
II. The Waves
III. The Ladder of Tyre
IV. Petrified Leap
V. The Lament of the Grottoes

Resounding Grottoes

This work won the Third Prize at the Fidelio International Piano Competition in Spain. In this piece, Alex merges a classical monopartite Sonata form with a Fibonacci-based growth structure. He uses a distinct “musical marker”, to differentiate between the thematic elements within each main theme. These elements follow the progression of the Fibonacci series (1,1,2,3,5,..). However, in the Development stage, this musical marker starts to evolve into a third theme, which develops also according to the Fibonacci series, and plays a different role in the Recapitulation, together with the two main themes. The overall atmosphere is somber, with sudden mood changes.
Pianist Ben Gimm premiered this work in June 2023 at The Ligeti Odyssey:First 100 Years in Portland, OR, where this live recording took place. The work was selected as Ligeti had interest and used in mathematical concepts, such as the Fibonacci series, in his music.

Fibo-Nata | piano - Ben Gimm

Konnakolada is a metaphor to the globalized world we live in. If the name makes you think of a cocktail, you are in the right mindset!  And if you are under 21 – no worries, it’s not alcoholic, it’s a cultural cocktail:     Ingredients: a) Konnakol (sounds like vocal percussion) is a musical tradition from South India introduced by guitarist John McLaughlin to fusion jazz. b) misra chapu is a seven-beat rhythmic pattern from East Asia. c)	Fibonacci Series: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13.....  was introduced by Italian mathematician Fibonacci. d) Lion Dance is a Chinese masked dance, accompanied by traditional percussion e) A meditative walk in the forest    Preparation:  Mix well and serve chilled with Jazzy inflections. This piece was composed in a collaborative process, facilitated by the In Good Hands program, together with pianist Eric Tee, and is dedicated to him.

Konnakolada - Config #1

Folklore is cultural DNA, a glance into the past, allowing us to exploring our musical roots. Filtered through the fast-paced, global reality of the 21st century, what we hear today might be over-simplified, commercialized renditions of the originals.
 For me, Forget-me-not is both a reminder and a symbol: it reminds me of my childhood in communist Romania, where folk music was misused for nationalistic propaganda purposes, and defiled of its authenticity. The beautiful blue flower constitutes a symbol of purity, innocent love, and unaltered beauty, barely surviving the increasingly hostile environment.   
The piece reflects my ambiguity towards folklore, through repeated interference between traditional and modern musical elements.


Forget-me-not

The creative process for Celestial Walk started many years ago, with a piano improvisation which Alex recorded and then revisited later on, to create a first draft for string ensemble. One theme, containing large leaps between registers, made him think of space-walking in imponderability, unhinged by cosmic or tonal gravitation. In last part of the work, Alex uses the Klangfarbenmelodie (tone-color melody) technique – splitting the melodic line between different instruments. The melody is revealed by following the starting points of the notes, played by different instruments. As the notes of the melody are prolonged and overlap, they form a melody-harmony structure, reminiscent of the time-space concept.
Alex uses the richness of timbres offered by the chamber orchestra, to imagine the fascinating experience of solitude combined with unmitigated astral energy, and observe its reflections, filtered through the vast internal world of emotions.


Celestial Walk - for Chamber Orchestra

Beethoven has been, and still is, the most influential artist in my musical life. As a child, I aspired to compose like him. As a teenager, I felt paralyzed, because I couldn’t. Therefore, writing a string quartet based on Beethoven’s main theme from the Grosse Fuge (Opus 133) seemed an impossible, though irresistible challenge for me, like:
…writing wonderful music you cannot hear…
…being curious to experience gravity in a black hole…
…trying to keep love alive in a dysfunctional relationship…
…fighting with the windmills…  
And the list goes on and on. Go ahead and fill in the blanks: what seems impossible…, though irresistible…in your life?



impossible.., though irresistible

E = mc^2 is a musical representation of Einstein’s equation, which states that energy (waves) and mass (particles) are interchangeable, being different forms of the same thing. The chromatic theme appears initially in wave form (with long, sustained notes), and is also rendered in pointillistic style, evoking myriads of particles. engaged in frantic, chaotic movement.  Although it is hard to notice at times, both aspects (wave and particle) co-exist at all times during the piece, like the two parts of the world’s most famous equation.

E = MC^2

Synergies I is the result of a collaboration between Alan Goldspiel and Alex Shapira launched during the NACUSA National Conference 2023 to attempt a creative collaboration between composers. We decided to create electronic music using Pro Tools and the DeepMind 12 synthesizer as the collaborative framework. Inspired by the different ways humans and technological systems interact, we focused on the feedback loop mechanism as the guiding structure for this work.
We created a modular design and assigned the responsibilities for the various modules and transitions between us. Great care was given to treating the transitions so that they establish the feedback effect. Ultimately, we fine-tuned and integrated the components and together composed the Finale, which contains motives from all previous modules.
The synergistic effect of this collaboration, we feel, produced an outcome greater than the sum of our individual contributions, and therefore is very meaningful to us, suggesting that Synergies I might be the beginning of a cycle of collaborative works.


Synergies I

The Second Music was inspired by a poem written by Annie Lighthart. The work is structured as a guided meditation, containing references to Carnatic Music (classical Indian music). Ragas are melodic frameworks for improvisation, which are believed to correlate with specific feelings and states of mind. I chose three Ragas to match the lyrics: a) Jaijaiwindi - serenity, stability; b) Pilu - love, hope, joy; c) Kedar - truth, integrity, change and beauty.
In my mind, the Second Music is the inner voice of conscience / sub-conscience (Baritone and Bass Trombone). The Soprano is the narrator, representing the First Music together with the Flute. 
The performers are encouraged to improvise ornaments in the vocal and instrumental parts, and design a stage positioning which emphasizes the difference between the First and Second Music.

The Lyrics:
Now I understand -
There are two melodies playing,
One above the other, 
The second lower, faithful, always present,
Gentle as the sound of names laid over each child at birth
( …Maor, Naomi, Anael, Avigail… )
The Truth of our lives unfolds softly:
Mortal time, transforming pain into meaning, into beauty.
Stop and stop again and
Listen to the Second Music.
Listen now, soon it will be gone:
Always present here, always present now, always…

The Second Music

MODERN SOUL
I studied piano and composition in Romania (where I was born), and then in Israel, where I lived for many years before moving to the US in 2003. I also received comprehensive scientific education and had a successful hi-tech and management career. 
In this new chapter of my life, I'm pursuing my passion for music again, creating authentic music, at the intersection of East and West. My compositions are a reflection of my heart, soul, understanding of the world and my experiences over the years. In my music, I tend to balance between artistic intuition and structural rigor, always prioritizing the emotional experience.
My music is performed throughout the US and Europe, and won several awards such as the New Ariel Piano Composition Competition, Saint-Saens International Music Competition, Vivaldi International Music Competition, King’s Peak International Music Competition and is featured on Navona Recordings label.
If you are a performer and interested in playing some of my works, please contact me to discuss how to collaborate. I am also interested in creative collaborations with other musicians, poets and visual artists.
I live in Dallas. have two adult children and three grand daughters. I like to hike, jog, meditate and enjoy modern art.
I serve on the board of NACUSA National, and I’m exploring new creative collaborations with composers, performers and other artists, pursuing creative and/or business collaborations.


Follow me on my FaceBook page: Alex Shapira composer
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089837462676
Youtube Channel:    https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCsDPn_RU4vcmJdVwlNOVkEg

Alex Shapira - composer

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks