Artist Info: Ralph Shapey

Ralph Shapey (March 12, 1921 – June 13, 2002) was an American composer and conductor.

Although Shapey's style is characterized by angularity, irony, and technical rigor, his work insists on sweeping gesture, frenetic passion, rhythmic vitality, lyrical melody, and dramatic arc recall Romanticism. Shapey was dubbed by critics Leonard Meyer and Bernard Jacobson as a "radical traditionalist," which pleased him immensely -- he held a deep respect for the masters of the past, whom he regarded as his finest teachers. [read more...]