We are thrilled to announce that in June 2025 Maestro Mark Shapiro will be conducting our recording of Concerto Grosso Laïko. This collaboration marks a new and ambitious expansion of the repertoire of the Pano Hora Ensemble to include works that call for a larger number of players.
Maestro Shapiro is a world-renowned conductor of orchestras, opera, and choruses known for the breadth and diversity of his repertoire and his interest in promoting new works. He has won six ASCAP Awards leading three different ensembles. The New York Times has called him “an insightful conductor who draws subtle and dynamic playing from his musicians.”
Shapiro leads multiple ensembles in New York and teaches conducting at the Julliard School. On April 26, he will be conducting the Cecilia Chorus and Orchestra of New York in the New York premiere of The World Called, by Adolphus Hailstork, based on poetry by former U.S. Poet Laureate, Rita Dove. That evening they will also be performing the German Requiem of Johannes Brahms. The concert is dedicated to the memory of Heather Heyer, whose life was ended in Charlottesville in 2017 when she was 32. Heyer’s mother, Susan Bro, and poet, Rita Dove, will address the audience. Maestro Shapiro and the Cecilia Chorus and Orchestra recently released a recording of Daron Hagen’s Everyone, Everywhere, a cantata commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Although Concerto Grosso Laïko is our first collaboration with Maestro Shapiro, not surprisingly he has already crossed paths with many of us before, which we hope may be a sign of more collaborations to come. Our flautist and Co-Director of Artistic Planning, Ginevra Petrucci, has played frequently under his baton. The great Armenian-American oud player and composer, Ara Dinkjian, who is featured on three Pano Hora Ensemble albums (Songs from the Lost and Found, Evlogía and Phrygian Gold) performed last year in the sensational premiere of Dear Mountains (by Karen Ouzounian and Lembit Beecher), which Shapiro commissioned and conducted. That piece, like much of our repertoire, illustrates how Near-Eastern and Middle-Eastern musical ideas and instruments can find a welcoming home in the Western concert hall.
