Judith Shatin

Biography

A distinctive voice in American music, Judith Shatin (www.judithshatin.com) is a composer whose music responds to the world around us – from her immediate surroundings and experiences to largescale environmental and cultural dynamics. She draws on both traditional and expanded instrumental palettes and a cornucopia of the sounding world, from machines in a coal mine to the calls of animals, the shuttle of a wooden loom, the pull of a zipper. Music theatre pieces include Follies and Fancies, a chamber opera based on Moliere’s Les Precieuses Ridicules and two monodramas: Patterns (soprano/piano), a setting of Amy Lowell’s poem of that name; and Carreno (soprano/pianist), with a libretto by the composer. She also created the libretto for her folk oratorio, COAL, sponsored by the Lia Acheson Wallace-Readers Digest Arts Partners’ Program as part of a two-year residency at Shepherd College, in Shepherdstown, WV.

Shatin’s music has been commissioned by organizations including the Barlow Endowment, Fromm Foundation, Carnegie Hall, Library of Congress and ensembles such as the National Symphony, Ensemble Berlin PianoPercussion and Kronos Quartet. Collaboration lies at the heart of her compositional process. Her music is recorded on labels including Centaur, Innova, Neuma, New World Records and Ravello. She is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor Emerita at the University of Virginia where she founded the Virginia Center for Computer Music. In demand as a master teacher, she has served as senior composer at the Wellesley Composers Conference, Master Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and BMI Composer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University.