In Friday’s (7/4) Boston Globe, Jeremy Eichler reports the death of longtime orchestral horn player and administrator Harry Shapiro June 28 in Cambridge, Mass. at the age of 100. A lifelong resident of the Boston area, Shapiro as a boy “accompanied his father, a freelance French horn player, to gigs across Boston, carrying his father’s instrument and sitting for the performance right there in the pit next to him. ‘From then on, that was his favorite place to be,’ said his daughter Laura.… Mr. Shapiro managed to secure that precise location, or something very close to it, for the entirety of a musical career that included more than six decades of involvement with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. From 1937 to 1976, he was a horn player with the BSO, appointed by Serge Koussevitzky.” After retiring from performance he served as the BSO’s assistant personnel manager, its transportation manager, and manager of the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Shapiro served as principal horn in the National Symphony Orchestra before joining the BSO, where his 39-year playing career was interrupted only by service in the U.S. Army Air Force Band during World War II.
Posted July 7, 2014
