Michal Shapiro has been surrounded by art and music from her earliest years. Her mother was a painter and her father was an architect. “There was always music playing in the house, and always plenty of pencils, paper, crayons or paint to play with.”

Michal attended Queens College for her Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, taking a leave of absence in her third year to sing with the 60s rock group “The Elephant’s Memory.” Returning to Queens College to complete the Master's program she left half way through to pursue her musical interests again. “It's been back and forth with music and art for most of my life—but I never stopped doing either one. For a while I was making a living rendering textile facsimiles—a dying art, now that the computer has taken over. But I find that the skill and patience I learned to apply in that job comes to the surface and coalesces in my visual work, and my musical work as well.” Michal's background in art and textile rendering also served her well in a trip to Bali where under the auspices of the clothing company Kembali Ltd she created a successful designer batik collection. She has participated in group shows in Chelsea, NY and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and a one woman show at the 55 Mercer Gallery. Her paintings have also been used in set designs, television pilots, commercials, the movie "Syriana" and most recently, the television series "Mad Men" (where her painting hangs in main character Don Drapers' office) and the Sam Mendes film "This Must be the Place."

Michal has also been a professional singer since the age of nine, and studied singing for seven years. "I love all kinds of music, from Worldbeat to R&B, but my voice is best suited to certain kinds of genres—Country, Bluegrass, Celtic and of course my own music." Michal is currently preparing a bluegrass CD project for Muse-eek Recordings which will feature some of the best bluegrass musicians in NYC.

In 1995 Michal started working as a freelance music producer and world music critic. She has written for Global Rhythm Magazine, Rootsworld, and Tower Pulse. The article that she wrote for Rootsworld on the subject of gypsy music is still regarded as one of the best introductions to the genre. Her work for the Ellipsis Arts label has led to these award-winning compilations: Planet Squeezebox: Accordion Music from Around the World; Klezmer Music: A Marriage of Heaven and Earth, Celtic Lullaby; Unblocked: Music of Eastern Europe; Latin Lullaby and Dancing with the Dead: The Music of Global Death Rites. Her own CD Mikhal: Full Flower was released in 2001.

Michal is currently Director of Music Programming for Link TV, (a satellite television station that is a basic service of Direct TV and the DISH network) and is responsible for the content of the world music blocks that they show several times each day. She also has her own world music videoblog at www.linktv.org/worldmusic/blog.

Michal can be contacted at
michal@michalshapiro.com