| Elyakum Shapirra | |
| Birth Date: | 27 December 1926 |
| Birth Place: | Tel Aviv |
| Death Date: | 3 February 2014 |
| Death Place: | London, England |
| Nationality: | Israeli, American (naturalized) |
| Occupation: | musician |
| Spouses: | Bernice Rubin (m 3/3/1953), Svetlana Thuss Mintschenko (m 7 May 1979) |
Elyakum Shapirra (Hebrew: אליקום שפירא ; 27 December 1926 – 3 February 2014) [1] was an Israeli conductor who appeared in a number of countries. (His names also appear as Eliakum and Shapira.)
He studied with Leonard Bernstein, becoming one of his assistant conductors at the New York Philharmonic.[2] He also studied with Serge Koussevitzky at Tanglewood, and at the Juilliard School.[1]
He was Assistant Conductor with the San Francisco Symphony. He led the New York Philharmonic on tours to Canada and Japan in 1960-61.[1] He was guest conductor with the University of the Pacific in 1961.[3] He became Associate Conductor with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from 1962 to 1967.[1] Robert Hall Lewis dedicated his Three Pieces for Orchestra (1966) to Shapirra and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.[4]
He was appointed Chief Conductor of the Malmö Symphony Orchestra in Sweden 1969-1974.[5]
Elyakum Shapirra was the first person to conduct Alexander Scriabin's in England with the coloured lighting that the composer called for. This occurred on 4 May 1972 at the Royal Albert Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra.[6]
Shapirra conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and soloist Georges Pludermacher in the posthumous world premiere of Jani Christou's Toccata for Piano and Orchestra (1962), on 23 April 1973 in Oxford.[7]
From 1975 to 1979 he was the Chief Conductor of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in Australia.[8] He was also associated with the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra in the Netherlands.[9]
In 1972 Shapirra made the first commercial recording of Anton Bruckner's Symphony in F minor ("Study Symphony"), with the London Symphony Orchestra.[10] He also recorded Bruckner's Overture in G minor with the LSO.
Other symphonic recordings included Leonard Bernstein's 1st and 2nd symphonies.[11] He also recorded other standard orchestral repertoire with various orchestras, as well as Israeli, Yemeni and Yiddish songs with popular singers.[12] [13]