Ralph Shapey

Ralph Shapey ( born March 12, 1921 in Philadelphia, † June 13, 2002 in Chicago ) was an American conductor and composer.

Shapey studied violin with Emanuel Zeitlin and composition with Stefan Wolpe. In 1954 he founded the Contemporary Chamber Players at the University of Chicago, with whom he performed contemporary works. After he had taught from 1963 to 1964 at the University of Pennsylvania, he became professor of composition at the University of Chicago, where he worked until his retirement in 1991. Among his pupils were, inter alia, Gerald Levinson, Gordon Marsh, Lawrence Fritts, James Anthony Walker, Frank Retzel, Jorge Liderman, Jonathan Elliott and Deborah Drattell. He also worked as a guest conductor in various orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta. In 1982 he became MacArthur Fellow, 1989 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1994 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He composed more than two hundred works, including a symphony, a symphonic poem and an orchestral fantasy, several concerts, including a violin concerto and a concerto for clarinet, violin, cello, piano, tom and bass drum, chamber music and piano pieces, a cantata and other vocal works as well as songs for female voices and tape.

In 1982 he was MacArthur Fellow.

• Composer of classical music ( 20th century)
• American composer
• Born 1921
• Died in 2002
• Man