National Honors and Spring Spotlight
for Composer Judith Lang Zaimont
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."
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.
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). |
Judith Lang Zaimont is internationally recognized for her music's distinctive style, characterized by its spirit of rhapsody, emotion, and expressive strength. In both orchestral and choral works, her creation of inventive and widely varied colors and textures is repeatedly cited by reviewers and listeners. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Composition, a composer grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a 2003 Aaron Copland Award, 2005 Adolphus Bush Foundation Fellowship, the Gottschalk Centenary Gold Medal, and winner of many other national and international awards. Her most recent prizes include 2012 Tempus Continuum and Third Millennium ensemble's first prizes, and First Prize in the 2015 The American Prize for Chamber Music Composition for her STRING QUARTET 'The Figure'. Her music is the subject of 23 doctoral dissertations and masters theses, with two currently in progress, at the Manhattan School of Music (NY), and Louisiana State University.
Zaimont has enjoyed a distinguished career as composer of over 120 works, with performances at major halls around the world including Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Museum, the "Egg" theater in Beijing, Hong Kong City Hall, Wiener Musikhaus (where Mozart's operas premiered; Vienna), and at The Kremlin. Her music is widely performed throughout the U.S.and Europe by major national and international soloists and ensembles, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, Connecticut Opera, Berlin and Czech Radio Symphonies, Camerata Bern (Switzerland), Zagreb Saxophone Quartet, Harlem String Quartet, Bergen Wind Quintet (Norway), Presidio Saxophone Quartet (Tucson), Gregg Smith Singers, Elmer Isseler Singers (Canada), Women's Philharmonic, Slovak National Philharmonic, the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra, and others. Zaimont works regularly appear on approved repertoire lists from music organizations in the US and United Kingdom. Her recorded works are issued by MSR Classics, Naxos, Navona, Harmonia Mundi, Arabesque, Albany, Jeanné, Leonarda, Northeastern, and 4Tay labels. Her principal publishers are Subito Music, ECS, and Jeanné.
She is also a distinguished teacher: Professor Emeritus of Music Composition and Scholar of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, and a former faculty member at Peabody Conservatory and several units of the City University of New York (CUNY). She remains sought-after for master classes and private lessons in composition and orchestration. Her articles and essays on various music subjects include the 2009 Article of the Year award from Music Teachers National Association, and twelve years as creator and editor-in-chief helming the critically acclaimed book series The Musical Woman: An International Perspective. ( For Volume III she was awarded a major development grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.)
Her childhood career as concert pianist also included prizes and awards, an appearance on The Lawrence Welk show (age 11), and a semi-regular slot on The Mitch Miller Show in her teens. She continues to perform with Maricopa Music Circle chamber orchestra.