Artist Biography

“I have long considered Judith Lang Zaimont to be one of the most consistently rewarding composers of her generation..”
​- Walter Simmons, 2012

“Her music immediately immerses the auditor in Zaimont’s own soundscape …. This is music sown with seeds of greatness.” - David DeBoor Canfield, 2012

​Early Life and Music Training 

Judith Zaimont was born  Judith Ann Lang on November 8, 1945 in Memphis, Tennessee. Soon afterwards her parents returned to their hometown, New York City, and the composer’s formative years were spent in Bellerose, Queens.
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​She began piano study at age 5, begging for lessons from her mother, Bertha F. Lang (later a president of New York State Music Teachers Association). By the age of 8 the composer was performing in public. At age 10 she won 3rd prize in the International Piano Teachers Association annual contest, performing Chopin’s Fantaisie Impromptu, and the following year was flown to California to perform as soloist on “The Lawrence Welk Show”.  In her 13th year she began as a scholarship student at Juilliard Prep., spending every Saturday at the school as a student of Rosina Lhevinne. At Juilliard she worked with Mme. Lhevinne, her chief assistant Leland Thompson, and also studied duo-piano with Anne Hull.

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In her early teens Judith was paired with her slightly-younger sister, Doris, as a duo-piano team under professional management. (Doris Lang Kosloff, is now head of the opera program at Hartt School of Music and Artistic Director of Opera Connecticut.) The two teenagers toured the US, performing on radio, in concert, and with orchestra, playing both standard repertoire and works written particularly for them as well as a few arrangements by Judith ( i.e., the Ritual Fire Dance). The Lang sisters made their Carnegie Hall debut in 1963 with the Little Orchestra Society in Carnival des Animaux, and in the mid-60s they were semi-regulars for two years on TV’s “Mitch Miller Show”. Their 1965 Golden Crest LP, “Concert for Two Pianos” includes the US première recordings of the Poulenc 4-hand Sonate¸ a suite by Robert Casadesus and L. Thompson’s Two Masques, plus standard repertoire (Milhaud, Arensky, Vaughan Williams). 

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Early Activities as Composer

Zaimont began composing spontaneously at age 11 and began winning composition competitions from age 12 onward.(E.g., National Federation of Music clubs national First Prizes at age 12 [ piano solo suite: performed in Washington, DC] and age 14 [ flute and piano sonata: performed in Miami, Fl.].) 

At 16 she entered Queens College, CUNY as a music major, and performed as soloist with the school’s orchestra as a freshman ( Mozart ‘Coronation’ Concerto, Liszt Eb Concerto No. 1). As a junior she again played with the orchestra, with her sister (Poulenc Two Piano Concerto), and also was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She graduated at the age of 20, earning a BA magna cum laude, and receiving the school’s principal music prizes, the Karol Rathaus and Alter Machlis awards.

As an undergraduate Zaimont worked in classroom settings with the school’s distinguished roster of composers (George Perle, Hugo Weisgall, Leo Kraft) but did not study composition privately at all. During those same years however, her original music continued to win key prizes (for example, the BMI prize at age 18, for Four Songs for Mezzo and Piano [ e e cummings ]). The award of a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship enabled her to attend the graduate school of her choice, Columbia University, and it was at Columbia that she undertook her only formal composition instruction (recipient also of Columbia’s Anton Seidl Fellowship in Composition), studying for a year each with Otto Luening and Jack Beeson.

Zaimont completed her master’s in Music Composition in 1967 at age 22, and four years later was awarded the Debussy Fellowship of the Alliance Française for a year’s study of Orchestration with André Jolivet in Paris (1971-72).

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Teaching Career, Author/Editor and ‘Musician at Large’

Directly upon concluding at Columbia she embarked on a 36-year career as both music professor in higher education, teaching theory, musicianship and composition,  along with her primary work as composer. Her teaching years include significant appointments to the music faculties of Queens College (1972-1977), Peabody Conservatory - John Hopkins University (1980-1987: named Teacher of the Year in 1985), at Adelphi University (Chair of the Department of Music: 1988-1991), and as professor of composition at the University of Minnesota (1991-2005: terms also as Chair of the Division of Theory and Composition, and an appointment as Scholar of the College of Liberal Arts, 2002-2005).

Beginning in the early ‘80s and continuing onward, Judith Zaimont began to be active as a writer on musical subjects. Her first Greenwood Press book, Contemporary Concert Music by Women, was deemed a landmark publication upon its appearance in 1981 and her essays have appeared over the years by request in publications geared both for the professional music and humanities communities (ex., “Embracing New Music”, her 2009 article for American Music Teacher magazine, named Article of the Year by the Music Teachers National Association). In her capacity as creator and editor-in-chief of the critically acclaimed three-volume book series, The Musical Woman: An International Perspective (Greenwood Press: 1984, 1987, 1991) she received universal critical applause, several awards, a major research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the 1993 First Prize in the international musicology awards issued IAWM, the Pauline Alderman Prize. 
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Zaimont’s original musical compositions continue to appeal to listeners of all ages, and -- via live performance, in recording and broadcast on Voice of America -- to listeners all around the globe. Major articles on her music have appeared in many professional journals, music dictionaries and a variety of teaching media (books, recordings, videos), and she is a featured composer in several volumes of the music appreciation text Making Music Your Own (Silver Burdett Ginn), in the Carnegie Hall Centennial celebration volume, as well as in The Popular Guide to Classical Music (Birch Lane Press, 1993). She is also a frequent composition competition adjudicator, and has made an enduring contribution to piano pedagogy in the area of the teaching of 20th-century performance techniques; her “Annotated List of Twentieth-Century Repertoire for the Piano” (in Teaching Piano, Denes Agay, ed: Yorktown Music Press) is a standard pedagogical resource.  

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A Maricopa, AZ 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. The ensemble has now grown into a 15-member chamber orchestra and  is recognized as the city's premiere concert-music group.  MMC still performs without a conductor, and rehearses every week in the Zaimont home.     

Artist, musician and educator Gary Edward Zaimont married Judith Lang (Zaimont) in 1967. Their son, Michael, was born in Baltimore in 1981. 
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Composer

Judith Lang Zaimont is internationally recognized for her music's distinctive style, characterized by its spirit of rhapsody, emotion, and expressive strength, and repeatedly cited by reviewers and listeners for her creation of inventive and widely varied colors and textures. Many of her 120 works are prize-winning compositions; these include four symphonies, chamber opera, oratorios and cantatas, music for wind ensemble, vocal-chamber pieces with varying accompanying ensembles, a wide variety of chamber works, and solo music for string and wind instruments, piano, organ, and voice.

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Her most recent prizes include 2012 Tempus Continuum and Third Millennium ensemble's First Prizes for chamber works, First Prize in the 2015 The American Prize for Chamber Music Composition for STRING QUARTET 'The Figure', and a top award in the 2016 The American Prize for Orchestral Composition for Pure, Cool (Water) – Symphony No. 4.  Earlier awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship in Composition, the Gottschalk Centenary Gold Medal, a composer grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, First Prize in the 1995 McCollin International Composers Competition (Symphony No. 1), a Maryland State Arts Council creative fellowship, two commission grants from American Composers Forum, grants to support recordings from the Aaron Copland Fund at the American Music Center (1995, 2002) and Columbia University’s Ditson Fund,  2003 Aaron Copland Award, 2005 Adolphus Bush Foundation Fellowship, First Prize in the 2005 American Composers Invitational Composition Competition  - Jabez Press, TX (A  Calendar Set – 12 Preludes),  two grants from the Arizona Commission on the Arts (2008 and 2012), plus other national and international awards. Her music is included on two Century Lists (Chamber Music America and Piano & Keyboard) and her recordings have to date been cited on four Fanfare best-of-the-year Want Lists.

Zaimont has enjoyed a distinguished career as composer of works in many genres, 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 (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, Camerata Bern (Switzerland), Baltimore Symphony, Missouri Symphony, Janacek Philharmonic (Czech Republic), Connecticut Opera, Pro Arte Chamber Orchestras (NY and Boston), Mississippi Symphony, Berlin and Czech Radio Symphonies, Zagreb Saxophone Quartet, Harlem String Quartet, Bergen Wind Quintet (Norway), Presidio Saxophone Quartet (Tucson), Gregg Smith Singers, Elmer Isseler Singers (Canada), Laudebus (London), Ernst Senfft Chor (Berlin), New York Virtuoso Singers, Portland Symphonic Choir (Oregon), Amor Artis, Dale Warland Singers (Minneapolis), Women's Philharmonic, Jacksonville (FL), Greenville(NC), Rockford (IL), Madison (WI), Laramie (WY) and Harrisburg (PA) Symphonies, Slovak National Philharmonic, Kharkov Philharmonic (Ukraine), the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra, and wind ensembles at Florida State University, University of Minnesota, Georgia State, University of Connecticut, and University of Virginia and Trinity College ( Greenwich, UK);  and such distinguished solo artists as renowned soprano Arleen Augér, pianist Dalton Baldwin, oboist Lisa Kozenko, cellist Tanya Remenikova, tenor Charles Bressler, baritones James Maddalena and David Arnold, pianists Olga Kern, Stanislav Ioudenitch, Joanne Polk, Elizabeth Moak, Awadagin Pratt, Bradford Gowan, and many others.​

Zaimont’s honors also include being recipient of  the Wind/String Prize – 1978 Los Alamos International Chamber Music Competition,  First Prize  in 1985 national Georgia State University Centennial Competition (​Sky Curtains), First Prize  in 1986 National Competition for Chamber Orchestra in honor of the Statue of Liberty Centennial (Chroma), Mayor's Award for Creativity (1987) - The City of Baltimore,  1988 National League of American Pen Women Fellowship (biennial award: Parable -  A Tale of Abram and Isaac), Chosen Work for 1988 General Motors/ Seventeen Magazine competition (Nocturne – La Fin de Siècle),  First Prize 1990 Friends and Enemies of New Music Competition (national: Dance/Inner Dance),  First Prize 1995 Recording Award from International Alliance for Women in Music (Neon Rhythm),  1995 John Castellini Award – Queens College (CUNY) Silver Anniversary,  2000 Millennium Commission from Chamber Music America  for Ensemble Capriccio (SPIRALS for String Trio),  2000 A Closed Fist (mvt. 3 of SPIRALS) selected for the cover of The College Music Society's publication Reflections on American Music: The Twentieth Century and The New Millennium (Pendragon Press), 2001-02  Australis (from Sky Curtains) named as Featured Contemporary Work for Minnesota Classical Listening competition, 2003 Central Composer profiled on two-part Minnesota Public Radio program celebrating women composers (Zaimont work “The May-fly” used as title music for this national broadcast), and since 2004 a Zaimont work is included in the 3rd edition of Sam Adler’s The Study of Orchestration teaching package (Jazz Waltz from Suite Impressions).

She has additionally been named Composer of the Year at Alabama University-Huntsville (1994-95),  Featured Composer / Scholar in Residence 1995 at Agnes Scott College (also delivered Phi Beta Kappa inaugural address) / Clayton State University / University of Georgia, Featured Composer at the 1995 Society of Composers International meeting, Filene Artist-in-Residence for the 1996-97 year at Skidmore College, Composer in Residence at University of Wisconsin-River Falls (1999), National Federation of Music Clubs Featured Composer for 2002 – 2003, 2002 Featured Composer for 2002 Millsaps College national symposium on women composers (commission: Virgie Rainey -- Two Narratives), 2002 Commissioned Composer  to honor the 100th anniversary of the University of Minnesota’s School of Music (Symphony for Wind Orchestra in Three Scenes), 2004 Copland Commissioned Composer – Hoff-Barthelson School (From the Folk), 2003-4 Commissioned Composer of the California Music Teachers Association, 2007 Commissioned Composer - Kaplan Foundation (Israeli Rhapsody),  2008 Competitive Commissioned Composer – Universal Sacred Music Foundation (​The Spirit Moves IN Me),  Featured Composer, Central Composer at the 2009 Women in MUSIC Festival at the Eastman School of Music (commission: Housewife), 2009 Featured Composer for the biennial Athena Festival - Murray State University, Kentucky, 2010 Featured Composer for “Intégrales” Festival – University of Southern Mississippi, 2014 Featured Composer – Cairn University. ​

Compositions by Zaimont have been featured works performed at the World Viola Congress, World Saxophone Congress, National Conference of CBDNA, National Cello Congress, several College Music Society National Conferences, two International Double Reed Society annual conferences, etc.  Among the agencies and performers who have commissioned her over the years are Connecticut Opera, American Choral Directors Association, College Band Directors National Association, American Guild of Organists, Chamber Music America, American Composers Forum, Baltimore Dance Theatre (Hidden Heritage: A Dance Symphony), Great Neck Choral Society (Sacred Service for the Sabbath Evening), Emrys Foundation (Monarchs), Sigma Alpha Iota, Huntingdon Trio (Dance/InnerDance), Gregg Smith Singers (Songs of Innocence), Florilegium Chamber Choir (NY: PARABLE), Exxon Fund/University of Alaska (From the Great Land), Artists International for Vox Nova Wind Quintet (When Angels Speak), First International Art Song Festival (AK: In the Theatre of Night), (Johns) Hopkins Symphony (Tarantelle), Minnesota Commissioning Club (‘Homeland’ Wind Quintet No. 2), Camerata Bern (JoyDance in Spring), International Double Reed Society ( … 3: 4, 5…),  Central Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra (Symphony No. 1), Baltimore Chamber Orchestra (Chroma), the Universities of Wisconsin (1999 Commissioned Composer: Parallel Play), University of Minnesota (Symphony for Wind Orchestra in Three Scenes), Alabama (Huntsville: ZONES - Piano Trio No. 2), University of North Carolina at Greensboro (PianoFest 2000: Jupiter’s Moons), Fairfield University (CT: VOICES), Portland Symphonic Choir (REMEMBERANCE),   and Queens College of the City University of New York (75th anniversary commission).  ​

Judith Zaimont’s music regularly appears on approved repertoire lists from music organizations in the US and United Kingdom. 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. Several of her pieces have been commissioned as required repertoire for international performance competitions --  Carnegie-Rockefeller American Music (vocal), Vahktan Jordania international (conducting),  and four piano competitions: Van Cliburn International (2001), San Antonio international (2004),  William Kappell International ( 2012), and American Pianists Association (APA: 2017). Two of her compositions have been named to Century Lists -- Doubles -1993 (oboe and piano: Chamber Music America), and Sonata - 1999 (Piano & Keyboard magazine). 

Her biography is found in most standard reference works (e.g., New Grove’s), and she is the subject both of individual chapters in specialist volumes and major articles in professional journals (The Clarinet, Fanfare, NATS Journal, Choral Journal, International Piano, Mississippi Rag,: Clavier, Chamber Music magazine,  Piano Today, IAWM Journal, etc.)  In 2000 Judith Zaimont and Joanne Polk co-founded AMERICAN ACCENT, a performing series in New York Citydedicated to repeat performances at the highest artistic and interpretative level of significant chamber-music works composed by Americans of the present and recent past.  The series featured the Lark Quartet, Joanne Polk, and Alan Kay as core performers with additional guest artists; Zaimont served as co-director and head of programming throughout the series’ three seasons.

Judith Zaimont’s recorded works are issued by Naxos, Navona, MSR Classics, Harmonia Mundi, Arabesque, Albany, Jeanné, Leonarda, Northeastern, and 4Tay labels. She is a member of ASCAP and her principal publishers are Subito Music, ECS, and Jeanné. ​

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Judith Zaimont is equally a distinguished teacher, formerly a member of the music faculties of Queens College and Baltimore's Peabody Conservatory of Music, where she was named "Teacher of the Year" in 1985. She held the post of Professor of Music and Chair of the Music Department at Adelphi University from 1989-91, and from 1992 to 2005 she served as Professor of Composition at the University of Minnesota School of Music, as well as division chair and Scholar of the College of Liberal Arts. After serving as National Board Member for Composition for the College Music Society (2003-2005), she served a second term on the advisory board of the International Alliance for Women in Music while also serving on the editorial board of American Music Teacher magazine (2004-2007). Since retiring from full-time college teaching in fall 2005, she remains sought-after for master classes and private lessons in composition and orchestration, and is active as clinician, frequent adjudicator and masterclass presenter across the US and abroad.

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Equally sought-after as writer and speaker, her articles and essays on various music subjects include an invited address on “Modern America and America’s Musical Women” to UNESCO in Paris (1997), the Keynote Address to the College Music Society in 2006 and to other national conferences in following years,  the 2009 Article of the Year award from Music Teachers National Association for “Embracing New Music” (American Music Teacher magazine), 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 and First Prize in the 1993 international musicology awards, the Pauline Alderman Prizes.) 
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