Hohe Stimme (Michael's Songbook for voice and piano)

Michael's Songbook is a collection of Michael Shapiro's song cycles.

Canciones are five songs for high voice and piano.

Settings of the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca in English translation, the Canciones or "songs" reflect the great depth of his poems. Garcia Lorca's attention to the pain felt between two people of loving feelings, childlike expressions between child and mother, the senses of an old woman in church, the dark path of a rider facing death in a Spanish city (perhaps presaging Lorca's own killing by the Falangists), are all portrayed in these profound songs. Premiered by Clamma Dale at Lincoln Center and later performed by many other singers including Ruth Golden in Washington, D.C., Canciones have been recorded by Ariadne Greif with the composer at the keyboard.

Dublin Songs for high voice and piano are twelve settings of James Joyce's immortal Chamber Music poems. Reacting perhaps to the title of Joyce's poetry, Michael's Dublin Songs bring the listener into the world of the youthful Jimmy and his reactions to his Irish heritage. This poetry of Ireland is full of melodic line and harmonic gesture, which Michael is careful and enthusiastic to follow and cherish. These are perhaps Michael Shapiro's most performed songs, first performed by Florence Levitt and later recorded by Ariadne Greif.

Wordsworth Songs for high voice and piano were commissioned by the New York Public Library for the opening of the Celeste Bartos Forum in NYC and premiered by the great mezzo soprano Katherine Ciesinski accompanied by Jerome Rose. These songs relish the immaculate and contemplative poetic visions of the great British poet in imaginative and stirring settings.

Songs for American Poets for low voice and piano are settings of American poets Carl Sandburg, Teton Sioux Native American, and Walt Whitman. Written for bass Harris Poor and premiered at Carnegie Recital Hall in NYC, the Sandburg poem is a harsh reminder of the price of war in blood, while the second poem by an anonymous Teton Sioux is a ruminative paean to holy nature. The last song relishes in the freedom and exalted love between young men who bathe by the shore.

Whitman Songs for low voice and piano are settings of three of the great poet's Civil War poems. Walt Whitman served as a caring nurse during the Civil War, and his observations of the pain and suffering of the wounded whom he dressed and cared for remain searing reminders of the awful and totally unnecessary cost of battle between mostly young men who are mandated to serve.