“Very cool music ... I love this piano etude that I’m listening to as I write this ... I’m reminded of bits of [Steve] Reich, [Philip] Glass, Sigur Ros, Cocteau Twins and Radiohead, intertwined with an aching longing and lots of integrity.”
solo PIANO CONCERT
Andrew Shapiro in Bogotá, 2026. Photo by Carlos Saavedra.
ANDREW SHAPIRO is a composer who has taken the ’80s pop music he grew up with (Men at Work, Pet Shop Boys, and Duran Duran) and blended it with the Classical Minimalism he grew to love.
After graduating from the Oberlin Conservatory, an internship with Philip Glass and time spent with the composer inspired him to realize his own musical sound and to develop his own way of putting his music out into the world.
With the piano, Andrew’s music rockets forward with an energetic pulse (Mint Green) or can be intimate, reflective and intelligently soothing (The High Line at Night).
His music is heard worldwide on radio, TV, films and commercials, and on concert stages. He has been featured in The New Yorker, ABC News, CNN, The Independent (UK), and Gramophone. One of his more popular tracks, Mint Green, has over 8 million streams on Pandora.
He was also the subject of a profile in The New York Times entitled "Quarter Pounder With Keys," describing his long-standing Sunday solo piano gig at McDonald's in downtown Manhattan from 2004-2013.
SELECTED GIGOGRAPHY
Auditorium Maximum (TEDx Krakow), Krakow, PL
Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, USA
Bargemusic, Brooklyn, USA
Café Absynthe, Gdansk, PL
Classical Underground, Los Angeles, USA
DiMenna Center, New York, USA
Emory University, Atlanta, USA
Exit Festival, Novi Sad, Serbia
Fort Belvoir (Army), Virginia, USA
Galicia Jewish Museum, Krakow, PL
Gracie Mansion, New York, USA
Joe's Pub, New York City, USA
The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, D.C., USA
Klub Powiekszenie, Warsaw, PL
Le Poisson Rouge, New York, USA (Wordless Music Series w/ Michael Riesman)
Marvimon Secret Restaurant, Los Angeles, USA
McDonald's, NYC, San Diego, London (piano residency)
Nationwide broadcast Czworka Polskie Radio (Polish Radio 3), PL
New Fall Festival, Dusseldorf, DE
Tarmac, Meerhout, BE
“There’s an interesting subgroup of composers who sing their own songs, blending aspects of art song and pop ... Andrew Shapiro is a notable practitioner.”
“Shapiro’s creation [Quiet Kissing] is dreamy ... the slowly rocking tempo and overlapping, whispery vocal track lull the ear and the mind into a contemplative state I previously thought could only be experienced by actors in independent films.”
“Intimate Casual is a restrained but warm blend of spare, classically influenced pieces with just enough pop sensibility to make them accessible...it shimmers in its minimalist strokes.”
Performing at Fort Belvoir, VA for hospitalized military veterans
“I loved both of the pieces of music [Detectors in the Eyes & Mint Green]. So very different. Haunting yet uplifting. I could imagine myself writing to it, which is not something I say a lot…”