Bernard Shapiro
of Christchurch, New Zealand

Member Since: Dec 10th, 2011

Shapiro is not a wealthy man. Instead of finding a 9 to 5 job, he dedicated 23 years to being a professional French Horn player – a job that, in New Zealand, pays pittance. “It’s not the money that you do it for. It’s the audience: you have to reach out and touch them. Not by hand, but by sound and passion. The eyes and ears are the strings that pull the heart.”

In between contracts and seasons Shapiro has led a unique life, trying his hand at the things that make New Zealand who it is. He’s been a dairy milking hand, lain roads, been an infantryman, a possum trapper, a menswear salesman, a deer stalker, an author, an amateur NZ historian, a homeless man, a bushman, recorded a classical music CD [Brahms' Horn Trio], a gold prospector, a whitebaiter, a rabbit-controller, a concerto guest soloist, a re-enactor raising funds for Rannerdale War Veterans’ Hospital, a gardener, a teacher and an adventurer. In 22 years he has kept so many journals of his experiences that an entire wall shelf is filled with them.

He has frequently been in the media. Winner of the ‘Stand Tall’ award in 2001 for being a ‘Tall Poppy’ in the face of adversity, he led an expedition on foot in 2006 across Otago from Oamaru to Arrowtown to interview a cross-section of the people who live there. He’s crossed the South Island in 1860 Surveyor attire and nearly drowned, losing 12kg in 9 days.

Most recently he represented the earthquake-traumatised people of Christchurch in tsunami-ravaged Sendai Provence in Japan, featuring in TVNZ’s Close-Up program. During the earthquake recovery operations of Christchurch in 2011 he operated his ww2 jeep day and night for three weeks to reconnoiter the worst-hit eastern areas for the Student Volunteer Army, Police and the Military providing anti-looting security patrols; transport for the Student Volunteer Army distributing volunteers, food, equipment and water, and raising donations for the Red Cross, St. John’s Ambulance, Salvation Army and the Homeless Shelter to the tune of $12,000 - Including the destruction of one of his horns on an auction site. 

His goals are to create a series of real-life historical adventure documentaries including crossing the Sahara in his WW2 jeep to commemorate the 2NZEF story of NZ in Africa, to walk across the Gobi Desert before he gets too old and to sit back with his pipe in a man cave and work on his memoirs once his boys grow up.