Jan Shapiro

Jan Shapiro possesses a soprano voice spanning more than three octaves while also performing on flute, electric bass, and piano; throughout her career she has focused intently on vocal technique and pedagogy. Born in St. Louis, she first attended the St. Louis Institute of Music before earning her undergraduate music degree from Howard University during the mid-1970s. Most of her early adulthood, however, was spent touring as a full-time vocalist on the hotel circuit, a schedule she maintained for several years after the births of her two sons in 1979 and 1981. She later accepted a faculty post at Southern Illinois University, moved to a position at Fontbonne College in St. Louis, and subsequently joined the faculty of Boston’s Berklee College of Music, where she completed a master’s degree at Cambridge College. Within the Berklee community she earned recognition as a teacher, administrator, and performer, and in 1997 she was appointed department chair, a role she still occupies. Her singing merges jazz, R&B, and pop elements; her debut album, Read Between the Lines, appeared in 1997, with Not Commercial following the next year. Boswellmania!, an independently issued twenty-minute tribute to the Boswell Sisters’ repertoire and charts, came out in the 2000s and featured her collaborations with Adriana Balic and Lisa Thorson; the three musicians continue to perform together regularly. Back to Basics was issued in 2006.