Judith Shatin
Judith Shatin Biography
Judith Shatin

"This was highly inventive music on every level; hugely enjoyable and deeply involving with a constant sense of surprise..."The Washington Post

Judith Shatin is a composer, sound artist, community arts partner and educator. Her inspirations range from myth, poetry and her Jewish heritage to the calls of the animals around us and the sounding universe beyond. Current projects include Jefferson, In His Own Words for narrator and orchestra, a co-commission of the Charlottesville and University Symphony Orchestra and the Illinois, Richmond and Virginia Symphonies, to be premiered in the spring of 2010. Recent projects include a McKim commission from the Library of Congress for Tower of the Eight Winds for violin and piano, premiered in December 2008. The Washington Post said "Judith Shatin's Tower of the Eight Winds ...stood out for its acuity and engaging vivacity as music one would like to hear again."

Shatin's music has been featured at festivals including the Aspen, BAM Next Wave, Grand Teton, Havana in Spring, Moscow Autumn, Seal Bay, Ukraine, Soundways (St. Petersburg) and West Cork. Orchestras that have performed her music include the Denver, Houston, Illinois, Knoxville, Minnesota, National and Richmond Symphonies. It can be heard on the Centaur, Neuma, New World and Sonora labels. It has been commissioned by groups including the Ash Lawn Opera, Barlow Foundation, Core Ensemble, Garth Newel Chamber Players, Kronos Quartet, Library of Congress, Music-at-LaGesse Foundation, National Symphony, newEar, Hexagon Ensemble, Virginia Chamber Orchestra and Wintergreen Performing Arts, the last through Americans for the Arts.

Educated at Douglass College (AB, Phi Beta Kappa), The Juilliard School (MM) and Princeton University (PhD), Judith Shatin is currently William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor and Director of the Virginia Center for Computer Music, which she founded at the University of Virginia in 1987. Now an advocate for her fellow composers, she has served on the boards of the American Composers Alliance, the League/ISCM, and the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM). She also served as President of American Women Composers, Inc. (1989-93). In demand as a master teacher, she has fufilled teh BMI residency at Vanderbilt university, and will serve as resident composer for California Summer Music and Wintergreen Performing Arts, both in the summer of 2010.

Shatin has been honored with four National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, as well as awards from the American Music Center, Meet the Composer, the New Jersey State Arts Council and the Virginia Commission for the Arts. A two-year retrospective of her music, and the commission for her folk oratorio, COAL, was sponsored by the Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Arts Partners Program. She has held residencies at Bellagio (Italy), Brahmshaus (Germany), Stiftung Dr. Robert und Lina Thyll-Dürr, Casa Zia Lina (Italy), La Cité des Arts (France), Mishkan Amanim (Israel) and in the US at MacDowell, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Yaddo. Shatin's music is published by Arsis Press, C.F. Peters, Colla Voce, E.C. Schirmer, Hal Leonard and Wendigo Music.