Sonata Violin/Piano: THE HIGH LINE (2015)

Commissioned by Gregory Fulkerson, Professor of Music, The Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

Gregory Fulkerson writes: Andrew Shapiro is a composer and songwriter living in Brooklyn. I first met him during his senior year at Oberlin when he acted as an audio assistant for my 1998 Merkin Hall concert in New York. I reconnected with him by chance in 2012, and we discussed working together to develop a violin sonata. I love the forthright and amiable spirit that permeates the piece; it is definitely in a pop style, yet he handles the standard acoustic sonorities deftly and there is a wealth of detail in the patterns of the violin. I don’t know anything else quite like it.

Andrew Shapiro writes: In 2011 I fell into a job as a High Line Park Ranger so as to be able to spend considerable time at this new, rather bizarre park. When there weren’t huge mobs of people around (and it wasn’t absolutely freezing), during my year working there I often found myself near the top of the Gansevoort stairs contemplating the view of the river. After a while I got the idea to write a few sweet and simple pieces of music about it at different times of the day.