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Jan Shapiro

Jan began her music studies at the Saint Louis Institute of Music and continued by earning her Bachelor’s degree, graduating Cum Laude from Howard University, Washington D.C. and completing a Masters degree from Cambridge College, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Her first major engagement at the Playboy Club in Saint Louis lasted more than six months–until she and her group went on the road, touring extensively. Subsequently she performed at the Camellia Room in the Drake Hotel, Chicago, the Hyatt Hotels in Washington D.C., and Atlanta, The Top of The Tower Club, New York City, Marriott Hotels in Florida, Washington D.C. and St. Louis, the Chase-Park Plaza Hotel, St.Louis, various Sheraton Hotels and Ramada Inns, and numerous hotels, supper clubs, and jazz clubs in Boston and the New England area.

Jan was the guest vocalist for the prestigious Boston Globe Jazz Festival in 1987 and in 1990, leading off the Festival in 1990.

As a musician, Jan has developed competence as a vocalist, flautist, electric bass, piano and keyboards as well as percussion. She is versatile in style, singing jazz, soft-rock, pop, blues, and ballads with equal elan.

As a songwriter, she has written and collaborated in writing some of the songs she performs. In addition, she composed the score of “Tales of Toyland”, a children’s production of Bob Kramer’s Marionettes of Saint Louis, which toured nationally.

As a recording artist, she was the featured guest artist with the “Airmen of Note”–the official Jazz Ensemble of the United States Air Force, on a recording with international distribution. She has performed as a studio vocalist in recording numerous advertising jingles, TV spots and demos’ including recording with Len Dressler of the “Singers Unlimited” for the Broadway musical “Copperfield”.

Jan was a former faculty member of the Voice Department at Fontbonne College, Saint Louis, Missouri and in the Jazz Studies Department at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, Illinois. Jan is Professor of Voice at Berklee College of Music. She was also Chair of the Voice Department at Berklee from 1997 through May 2010. She has presented vocal clinics around the country including the International Association of Jazz Educators Conferences, and adjudicated high school jazz choirs in the New England area.

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3
Album Review

Jan Shapiro: Piano Bar After Hours

Read "Piano Bar After Hours" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Professor and former Berklee College Voice Department Chair Jan Shapiro does make it into the studio occasionally. Her previous recordings include Read Between The Lines (Self Produced, 1997), Not Commercial (Self Produced, 1998) and Back to Basics (Self Produced, 2006). Shapiro's fourth recording, Piano Bar After Hours continues where she left off with Basics, presenting a stripped down version of jazz vocals performed in an intimate duo format with her favorite pianists (save for Al Jarreau's “Tell Me" which is ...

1
Album Review

Jan Shapiro: Piano Bar After Hours

Read "Piano Bar After Hours" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Vocalist Jan Shapiro is best known as an educational fixture at Berklee College of Music. She arrived at that venerable institution nearly three decades ago and she's shaped countless voices and careers in the intervening years, serving as teacher, role model and, for more than a decade, head of the vocal department in Berklee's Performance Division. Her focus on the future purveyors of the arts has occupied a great deal of her time over the years but, since the late ...

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1

Recording

"Piano Bar After Hours," 4th CD By Boston Vocalist Jan Shapiro, To Be Released April 9

"Piano Bar After Hours," 4th CD By Boston Vocalist Jan Shapiro, To Be Released April 9

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

Jazz vocalist and longtime Berklee College vocal professor Jan Shapiro chose to focus on the challenging—and revealing—duo format for Piano Bar After Hours, her fourth CD and her first since 2007’s Back to Basics. Shapiro tapped six of her favorite pianists, with whom she’d worked in various settings through the years, to accompany her on the new disc, which will be released by her Singing Empress label on April 9. Before arriving at Berklee 28 years ago, Shapiro spent more ...

Performance / Tour

Jazz This Week: Sachal Vasandani, Galactic, Kris Davis Quintet, Jan Shapiro, Bucky Pizzarelli and Denise Thimes, and More

Jazz This Week: Sachal Vasandani, Galactic, Kris Davis Quintet, Jan Shapiro, Bucky Pizzarelli and Denise Thimes, and More

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman

It's a jam-packed week of jazz and creative music in St. Louis, with local debuts from two noteworthy touring musicians, the return of some familiar favorites, homecoming gigs for three local expats, and lots more. Let's go to the highlights... Tonight, singer Sachal Vasandani will make his St. Louis debut, beginning a four-night engagement at Jazz at the Bistro. Along with Gregory Porter, whom the Bistro presented for the first time in January, Vasandani is one of the most talked-about ...

106

Performance / Tour

Jazz This Week: John Scofield Quartet, Dianne Reeves, Ahmad Jamal, Jan Shapiro, Kung Fu, and More

Jazz This Week: John Scofield Quartet, Dianne Reeves, Ahmad Jamal, Jan Shapiro, Kung Fu, and More

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman

It's shaping up to be another fairly busy week for jazz and creative music in St. Louis, particularly for the good folks at Jazz St. Louis, who are presenting touring headliners at two different venues, but there's lots going on elsewhere, too. Let's go to the highlights: Tonight, guitarist John Scofield opens a four-night stand at Jazz at the Bistro. For this visit, Scofield is downplaying his usual tendencies toward funk, and bringing a quartet playing relatively straightforward swing and ...

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Performance / Tour

Jazz This Week: The Clayton Brothers, Cyrus Chestnut, Matt Wilson, Jan Shapiro, Jazz St. Louis Benefit Gala, and More

Jazz This Week: The Clayton Brothers, Cyrus Chestnut, Matt Wilson, Jan Shapiro, Jazz St. Louis Benefit Gala, and More

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman

Whether it's some kind of side effect of Jazz Appreciation Month or just coincidence, many of the jazz and creative music performers in St. Louis this weekend seem to have some sort of connection to music education.On Thursday, singer Jan Shapiro will return to St. Louis to do a free concert for the Jazz at Holmes series at Washington University. Shapiro is a former St. Louisan who now heads the vocal music department at Berklee College of Music ...

206

Performance / Tour

Jazz This Week: Bela Fleck and the Africa Project; a Tribute to Eddie Jefferson; Jan Shapiro; Matt Wilson; Ntozake Shange and Hamiet Bluiett; and More

Jazz This Week: Bela Fleck and the Africa Project; a Tribute to Eddie Jefferson; Jan Shapiro; Matt Wilson; Ntozake Shange and Hamiet Bluiett; and More

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman

There's lots going on in St. Louis over the next few days with regard to jazz and creative music, so let's go right to the highlights, starting with tonight when the much-anticipated Bela Fleck and the Africa Project tour comes to the Sheldon Concert Hall. For more on the Africa Project, see this article that I wrote for last week's Riverfront Times. Also, new this week, Playback STL's Amy Burger has a piece on the show here.Next up ...

146

Recording

Jan Shapiro, Singer & Berklee Vocal Chair, Releases New CD

Jan Shapiro, Singer & Berklee Vocal Chair, Releases New CD

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

Singer Jan Shapiro Releases Self-Produced Back to Basics

CD Marks Welcome Return to Recording For Longtime Vocal Chair At Berklee College of Music

March 12, 2007 - Singer Jan Shapiro has been a mainstay in voice education at Boston's Berklee College of Music for more than 20 years. Since 1997, when she became department chair, she has overseen the dramatic expansion of vocal studies at Berklee and had the satisfaction of building what is now the premier contemporary voice department ...

92

Recording

Singer and Berklee Vocal Chair Jan Shapiro Releases New CD, "Back to Basics"

Singer and Berklee Vocal Chair Jan Shapiro Releases New CD, "Back to Basics"

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

Singer Jan Shapiro has been a mainstay in voice education at Boston's Berklee College of Music for more than 20 years. Since 1997, when she became department chair, she has overseen the dramatic expansion of vocal studies at Berklee and had the satisfaction of building what is now the premier contemporary voice department in the country. But her academic and administrative responsibilities left little time for her own singing.

Last spring, Shapiro finally carved out the necessary time to plan ...

"Shapiro's flexible soprano, which glides along the clouds and flies gracefully on helium-dusted wings, becomes more affecting as the album plays on; the final track—Jones' "Company"—completely melts the heart.By and large, Piano Bar After Hours proves to be a compelling listen. Shapiro's skills as singer, interpreter and storyteller are on display for all to hear; not just those lucky and talented enough to study with her."By DAN BILAWSKY

"Piano Bar... is a collection of eleven far-flung songs that Shapiro sings with her experience-informed soprano voice. Where Shapiro vamps a show tune style with Frank Loesser's "A Slow Boat to China," slowly, perfectly supported by pianist Daniela Schachter, she makes Mark Winkler's lyrics sparkle on "I Keep On Loving You." She is as effective singing Rickie Lee Jones' "Company" as she is scatting Horace Silver's fun "Doodlin.'" But where Shapiro proves her temper singing almost casually on Loesser's "If I Were a Bell," where she turns the piece into an upbeat ballad with pianist John Harrison III bouncing right along. "Tell Me" is as experimental as its composer with Shapiro interpolating a Jarreau-McFerrin vibe with multi-voice tracking. Shapiro should get out of the classroom more."C. Michael Bailey, All About Jazz. "Jan Shapiro is different. Piano Bar after Hours is the fourth recording from the longtime Berklee Vocal Professor and she teams up with six favorite pianist for a series of intimate duets. Solo piano work is dangerous at best as it leaves the artist exposed warts and all. Piano duos are a different breed of trip wire where the ego must be left at the door, the tunes need to fit both players, and the mutual love and admiration allows the music to lead and the pianists to harmonically follow suite.

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Primary Instrument

Vocals

Location

Boston

Credentials/Background

Voice faculty , Berklee College of Music-1985-present Voice Dept. Chair , Berklee College of Music 1997-2010 contact Jan via email:[email protected], personal email—[email protected] or by going to www.janshapiro.com

Clinic/Workshop Information

Refer to Linkedin Vocal Jazz, solo vocalist ,..improvisation

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Piano Bar After Hours

Self Produced
2013

buy

On A Slow Boat To China

From: Piano Bar After Hours
By Jan Shapiro

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