Ittai Shapira was born in the US but grew up in Israel. He had the opportunity to perform as a musician for visiting dignitaries to Israel, including Milan Kundera and Edward Teller. At the age of 15 he came back to the US with his family to study at Julliard with a focus on violin. He earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees by the time he was 23. Ittai made his debut performance at Carnegie Hall in the year 2003. He has worked with a favored record label publishing 20+ recordings. Ittai is also a composer of original works and finds it a compelling form of creative expression. Many of his compositions have a literary affiliation, including a work entitled "The Old Man and the Sea" as an homage to Hemingway post the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He has also developed an original work in conjunction with author Salman Rushdie and his novel "Midnight's Children". Ittai is passionate about exploring the therapeutic nature of music and its ability to heal, borne of personal experience, via his non-profit Sound Potential and a collaboration with the Weill School of Medicine at Cornell.