Current News
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MSR Classics (MS1709)
A superb disc, excellently recorded; yet another acknowledgement of Zaimont's status - Colin Clarke
A fine collection highlighted by
two riveting string quartets - Huntley Dent Masterful chamber music masterfully performed - David DeBoor Canfield
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Critics have all given the disk
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The Amernet String Quartet is one of today’s most highly regarded chamber ensembles. Consisting of violinists Misha Vitenson and Franz Felkl, violist Michael Klotz and cellist Jason Calloway, they have performed across the Americas and in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, appearing at prominent venues and international festivals. Their current season includes tours throughout Europe and Latin America, return engagements throughout the United States and Israel, and premieres of several new works.They're artists-in-residence at Florida International University in Miami.
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Released 2018
The premiere recording of Judith Lang Zaimont’s Attars, in which she proves that “bracing” and “impressionistic” aren’t necessarily a contradiction in terms. - CD Hotlist
We come to the present day with Judith Lang Zaimont’s suite Attars, written just last year and translating five flower scents into miniatures of great sensuality … as if Zaimont had absorbed and updated Impressionism in ‘Pink Lotus’ and sinew in ‘Jasmine’. - GRAMOPHONE
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ATTARS recorded on the Steinway label by Drew Petersen. Drew is the winner of the 2017 APA competition and a brilliant pianist who gave a commanding performance of the work, which was commissioned from Zaimont to be the required competition piece.
For last year’s American Pianists Awards, she wrote a piece—a suite, really—called Attars. “Attar”: “a perfume or essential oil obtained from flowers or petals.” In her suite, Zaimont has five attars, or five movements, in any case: “Roses,” “Musk,” “Pink Lotus,” “Jasmine,” and “Frangipani” (what a wonderful name).
“Roses” is pleasantly sweeping, or nicely rippling. Perhaps the fragrance is moving through the air. The next movement, “Musk,” is bluesy. How about “Frangipani”? A bold and delightful waltz, possibly tipsy. I will say about Attars: they ought to be programmed. - Jay Nordlinger, THE NEW CRITERION
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Anticipated ReleaseThe big new recording for 2019 will be A to Z - Amernet Quartet plays Zaimont, to be released by MSR Classics. Five 21st-century Zaimont chamber music works for strings are performed by the Amernet String Quartet, artists-in-residence at Florida International University, with pianist John Wilson. The CD was recorded in Miami early in 2019, and includes first recordings of three of the pieces. The disc includes STRING QUARTET 'The Figure', A STRANGE MAGIC - String Quartet No. 2, the five movement SONATA-RHAPSODY for violin and piano, Verse ( for violin solo) and the solo cello Sestina (from Tanya Poems).
*The Amernet Quartet are artists-in-residence at Florida International University in Miami. |
The Amernet String Quartet with Judith L. Zaimont fresh after finishing the first day of recording their new CD.
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In the Works
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A SYMPHONY of SEASONS is in its final stages of completion for Orchestral Strings. The works; Winter Snowscape, JoyDance in Spring, Brooding Summer Episodes, Leaf-Whirl in Autumn will be performed by Soli Chamber Ensemble.
*Soli Chamber Ensemble is a contemporary chamber ensemble, specializing in commissioning and performing works of today's best composers. Making concert experience fun and engaging. |
National Honors and Spring Spotlight
for Composer Judith Lang Zaimont
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Internationally-known composer Judith Lang Zaimont has just been awarded a top prize in the 2016 'The American Prize in Orchestral Composition' for her fourth symphony, PURE, COOL (Water). The 50-minute work for full orchestra was composed in Maricopa in 2012-2013 and premiered in December 2014 in Vienna, Austria by The Janacek Philharmonic, led by Niels Muus, conductor at the Vienna Opera. The orchestra then toured the symphony in the Czech Republic, and subsequently recorded it on the Sorel label. The symphony has been received excellently by critics around the world, aired on Radio Indonesia, on Canada's CBC, in Sweden, Japan, Hong Kong, and in almost every US state, and elsewhere since its release in early 2016. In a lengthy review in FANFARE David DeBoor Canfield termed the symphony "a masterpiece". His review begins: "It is always a pleasure to become acquainted with as-yet-unfamiliar works of Judith Lang Zaimont, a composer who has precipitated boundless enthusiasm from me since my first exposure to her music a good four decades ago." He went on to place this symphony on FANFARE's 'must-buy' Want List for 2016.
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Jim Svejda, host of Los Angeles-based KUSC-FM’s “The Evening Program" featured Judith in a November 2016 three-hour interview centered on the symphony. In a pre-broadcast interview with Judith's principal publisher, Subito Music, he said “I asked Judith to be a guest on the program because she’s obviously one of the major American composers of her generation, in addition to being one of the most charming and eloquent -- something I’ve learned over the years from several mutual friends, and something our recent interview confirmed (and then some!). Her music is not only accessible in the best possible sense, but is also colorful, haunting, and exhilarating. It always has important things to say (beyond the expert manipulation of the notes themselves). In short, it’s some of the most important and entertaining music being written anywhere today."
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Judith Zaimont will again be in the national spotlight in Indianapolis on April 3, 2017 at the Christel DeHaan Fine Arts Center when her new solo-pianowork, ATTARS, receives its five world premieres in a single recital, performed by all the finalists in a major national piano competition. ATTARS was commissioned as the required work for the 2017 American Pianists Awards competition for classical pianists. The APA competitions are held every two years to discover the best aspiring young American pianists, alternating between classical and jazz pianists. Thus, the classical competition occurs only every fourth year and is quite prestigious. Competitors must be nominated to enter, and winners receive cash and two-years of career management, concert appearances, commercial recordings and cash valued at over $100,000.
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ATTARS is the latest of Zaimont's pieces commissioned as a required work for international or national competitions. The first of these for piano solo was for the 2001 Van Cliburn Award; others have been for the Rockefeller-Carnegie awards (voice), Vakhtang Jordania conducting competition (Ukraine), San Antonio International competition (piano) and the recent William Kappell International (piano). The eight-minute ATTARS profiles five varied essential oils in one movement: roses, pink lotus, musk, jasmine, frangipani. The music incorporates many challenges to a pianist's technique, several emphasizing left-hand versatility, and throughout testing a pianist's inherent musicality. And, like several other Zaimont competition works, it offers some choice to the performer -- in this case the option being to reverse the order of sections two and three, if the soloist decides that doing so will provide a better structure to the work overall.
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On June 10, 2017 another Zaimont world premiere is scheduled in the Berkshires. Metropolitan Opera soprano Danielle Talamantes and a chamber ensemble will offer the first performance of The Statue Emma Lazarus - Hero of Exiles at Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center. Commissioned by the director of the music series Close Encounters with Music, The Statue is a setting of texts the composer culled from all of the poet's published writings, including much of the text for the Lazarus poem inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty, "The New Colossus". The resulting libretto is "told" by Miss Liberty herself - "From my beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome." Emma Lazarus was a noted advocate speaking and writing in both the US and England on behalf of populations seeking to immigrate to the US from Eastern Europe, and this piece was commissioned to honor the 100th anniversary of New York state's passage of the amendment ratifying women's suffrage. The Statue will be performed by the premiering musicians several times following the premiere, with performances planned in both New York and Massachusetts.
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A Maricopa resident, since 2005, Judith Zaimont has been active in supporting increased recognition and vibrancy for the city's Arts scene. She serves currently as a Co-Director of Maricopa ARTS Council (MAC); and with two other talented Maricopa musicians she founded Maricopa Music Circle in January 2010 and the ensemble has now grown into a 15-member chamber orchestra, and has become the city's premiere concert-music group. MMC still performs without a conductor, and rehearses every week in the Zaimont living room.
Judith is married to artist and musician Gary Zaimont. Their son, Michael, is a video-game creator and master programmer (author of Skullgirls and Indivisible). |
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Content Copyright 2017 © JudithLangZaimont, All Rights Reserved
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