Born and raised in a musical family in Pueblo, Colorado, Cynthia moved to New York City to attend the Manhattan School of Music. She soon moved on to musical directing and finally to acting in film and theater. Her recent film work has been presented at Cannes Festival Corner, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Soho International Film Festival, WorldFest International Film Festival, Indie-Fest, the Los Angeles Movie Awards, the Big Apple Film Festival, and Manhattan Film Festival, to name a few. Her episode of the web series, Brooklyn Is in Love, won two awards at the prestigious LA Web Fest.Stage credits include work with such NYC Off-Broadway theater groups as the Medicine Show Theatre, the Barrow Group, T. Schreiber Studios, the Wild Project, the Articulate Theatre Company and the Secret Theatre."The delightful Cynthia Shaw wonderfully captures the grandeur, egotism and pathos of Arkadina and Ranevskaya." -- review by Darryl Reilly of Mr. Chekhov and Mr. Porter."Uppity but batty Mrs. Winemiller (Cynthia Shaw), doesn't always do what she's expected to do with hilarious repercussions." -- review by Cindy Pierre of Summer and Smoke.As a singer she has sung backup vocals for both Paul McCartney at Carnegie Hall and Björk at Riverside Church, and she sang with the New York Philharmonic when they won three Grammy Awards in Classical Music for John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls. Her singing has been featured on the New York Times website, and as a pianist she has performed with the New York Revels on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion at New York's Town Hall and on NPR.Her new one-woman show, Velvet Determination -- A Young Pianist's Journey to New York, will be performed at the 2018 United Solo Festival on Theatre Row.