Judith Shatin

Network for New Music Presents Elijah's Chariot
2024-01-27 19:30 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | Charry Sanctuary, Germantown Jewish Center, 400 W. Ellet St., Philadelphia, United States
Elijah’s Chariot, a co-commission of Kronos Quartet and the National Endowment for the Arts, is scored for string quartet and electronics fashioned from processing shofar recordings. The folk melody Eliyahu HaNavi, often sung during the close of the Sabbath, is woven into Elijah’s Chariot. The opening phrase of this melody forms a melodic thread in Elijah’s Chariot, emerging clearly at one point, and obliquely at others. For more information about the piece, visit the composition page.The concert explores the human experience through Jewish texts and music, and also includes music by composers Daniel Asia, and Adah Kaplan. More program information may be found here. You can listen in advance here.

Choreographer Virginie Mecene & Music from Adventure on Mt. Hehuan
2024-01-26 10:00 (America/New_York) | Bruno Walter Auditorium, NYPL, 111 Amsterdam AVe., New York City
Choreographer Virginie Mecene reimagines and rechoreographs Lost Solos of Martha Graham: Revolt (1927) and Immigrant (1928). She set her reimagining of Revolt to music from Shatin’s Adventure on Mt. Hehuan, for solo bass drum and optional interactive electronics. She presents this work at The Jerome Robbins Dance Division Annual on March 26 at 10:00 a.m. The event is free, but registration is required.

Safe Sounds Performs Of Wells & Springs at the 44th International Saxophone Symposium
2024-01-13 12:30 (America/New_York) | Choral Room, George Mason University Center for the Arts, 4373 Mason Pond Dr., Fairfax, VA, 22030, United States
Innovative saxophonist and composer Kevin Norton, one of the consortium members who commissioned Of Wells & Springs, will give his premiere of the piece with percussionist Brandon Dodge. Inspired by Wendell Berry’s poem Water, the piece plays with the ebb and flow of rain, following an extended drought. Also on the program are Breathe by Evan Williams and Two-faced by Curtis Hughes.For more information, visit www.judithshatin.com.

The Atar Piano Trio Performs To the Bird From a Distant Land
2024-01-04 20:00 (America/New_York) | Studio Annette, Shvil Hameretz 2, Tel Aviv, Israel
The Atar Trio, led by pianist/arranger Ofer Shelley, together with the sparkling soprano Tali Ketsef, performs their program In the Pool with Bialik at Studio Annette in Tel Aviv. Born in Ukraine, Chaim Nachman Bialik lived as a young man for some years in Odessa before eventually immigrating to Tel Aviv following sojourns in Poland and Germany. Writing in Yiddish and Hebrew, and considered by many to be Israel’s national poet, Bialik’s emotional lyrics are suffused with longing. This program includes my commissioned trio To the Bird from a Distant Land, a response to Bialik’s iconic poem To the Bird. The program includes a stellar lineup of settings of a number of Bialik’s poems by distinguished composers Josef Bardanashvili, Tsippi Fleischer, Aaron Harlap and Alex Wasserman, among others, and additional selections arranged by Ofer Shelley.

Illinois Public Media Broadcast of Nun, Gimel, Hei, Shin
2023-12-13 20:00 (America/New_York) | CA
Broadcast of Shatin’s popular round, Nun, Gimel, Hei, Shin, on Illinois Public Media (NPR, PBS) in a recording on the Milken Archive CD Hanukkah Celebration, recording by the London Children’s Choir on Naxos. The sheet music is published by Colla Voce music.

Soprano Sara Paar and Pianist Marcia Eckert Perform La Frontera
2023-12-10 15:00 (America/New_York) | Christ & St. Stephen’s Church, 120 W. 69th St., New York, NY, United States
Soprano Sara Paar and pianist Marcia Eckert will premiere the soprano/piano version of La Frontera on the Amnesty International benefit concert on 12/10 at Christ & St. Stephen’s Church in New York City. La Frontera (The Border ) is a poem by an undocumented immigrant youth held in an American maximum security detention center. More information about the piece can be found here. 100% of scores sales go to CAIR Coalition’s Detained Children’s Program.

Atlanta Young Singers Performs Nun, Gimel, Hei, Shin
2023-12-03 15:00 (America/New_York) | Church at Ponce and Highland, 1085 Ponce de Leon Ave., Atlanta
The Atlanta Young Singers, conducted Paige Mathis, performs Shatin’s popular Hanukah Round Nun, Gimel, Hei, Shin on their winter holiday program. Recorded on the Milken Archive, it is published by Colla Voce Music. It is a 3-part round with a descant, and can be performed by any chorus that can handle a 3-part round.

JY Yuan Performs Kairos on his Oberlin Senior Recital
2023-11-11 16:30 (America/New_York) | Oberlin Conservatory, 38 E. College St., Oberlin, OH, 44074, United States
Flutist JY Yuan is performing Kairos on his Oberlin Senior Recital. Composed for, premiered and recorded by flutist Patricia Spencer, it has a Max Patch designed by Troy Rogers and updated by Max Tfirn. I created the original with HMSL, a very flexible, and very complicated program! The sound of the flute is transformed in multiple ways, with the mood ranging from heraldic to wild, from deeply calm to overpowering.

Diabelli Variation premieres at the Staatstheatre Braunschweig
2023-11-05 18:00 (Europe/Berlin) | Staatstheater Braunschweig, Kleines Haus, AM Theatre, 38100 Braunschweig
Fifty international female composers from across the world are included in the Diabelli Recomposed project, each contributing a new variation to the collection of 50 that will premiere 2oo years after the original at the Staatstheater Braunschweig. Initiated by musicologist Claudia Bigos, 10 students of Prof. Ewa Kupiec of the Musikhocschule Hannover will perform during the premiere.

Mark Russell Smith Conducts the Quad City Symphony in Piping the Earth
2023-11-05 14:00 - 15:30 (America/New_York) | Centennial Hall, 3703 7th Ave., Rock Island, IL, United States
Mark Russel Smith conducts the Quad City Symphony in a performance of Piping the Earth on Masterworks II: An American Tapestry, which also features music by Aaron Copland, Amy Beach, John Adams and Sergei Rachmaninoff. At the time of its premiere by the Women’s Philharmonic, conducted by JoAnn Falletta, the San Francisco Chronicle said: “The evening’s high point came midway through the second half, with the premiere of Judith Shatin’s exuberant and captivating Piping the Earth. Vividly orchestrated and bursting with imaginative detail, the piece grabs a listener’s attention right from the opening moment…”

Mark Russell Smith Conducts the Quad City Symphony in Piping the Earth
2023-11-04 19:30 (America/New_York) | Adler Theatre, 136 E. 3rd St., Davenport, IA, United States

Bass Matt Mueller Performs vayter un vayter, First Movement
2023-10-28 19:30 (America/New_York) | The Cell Theatre, 338 W. 23rd ST., NYC
The Marshall Opera, devoted to new and neglected opera, presents a concert featuring songs from operas as well as songs that have dramatic themes. The latter is the case of vayter un vayter, a setting of the first in a cycle of threee settings of poems by Avrom Sutzkever. Commissioned by Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, the original scoring is for bass, clarinet, cello and piano. It will be performed in the version for bass and piano at The Cell on Oct. 28. More info can be found here.

Coro Volante Performs La Frontera on Cincinnati Fall Chamber Orchestra Festival
2023-10-25 19:00 (America/New_York) | Christ Church Cathedral, 318 East 4th St., Cincinnati, United States
Coro Volante, led by L. Brett Scott, will perform La Frontera on the Cincinnati Fall Chamber Orchestra Festival, with the program theme We Are One: Hope. The program offers ‘…an open invitation to a better society.” La Frontera (The Border) is the setting of a poem in the original Spanish by an undocumented immigrant youth held in an American maximum-security detention center. It is from the collection Dreaming America, written during workshops held for immigrant youths in detention led by poet Seth Michelson. Score sales are donated to the Detained Children’s Program of the Cair Coalition. For more information and to see the poem visit here.

Judith Presents on Her Sutzkever Settings
2023-10-22 15:30 (America/New_York) | Congregation Beth Israel, 301 East Jsefferson St., Charlottesville, VA, United States
Judith will present on her setting of Sutzkever’s poem shpiltsayg (Toys). one of a group of three powerful poems. The cycle is titled vayter un vayter, after a phrase in the first of the group. called es klopn di shleyfn (My Temples are Throbbing). There is ore information on the cycle here. This presentation is part of a larger program called Black Honey, the Life and Poetry of Avraham Sutzkever. It includes the showing of the film Black Honey, as well ass additional presentations by Professor Jeffery Grossman and psychoanalyst Dr. Leslie Johnson that consider other aspects of Sutzkever, his work and world and its contemporary meaning for us,

Atar Trio Performs To the Bird From a Distant Land
2023-10-17 20:00 (Asia/Jerusalem) | Eshkol Pais, 52 Dafna St, Kiryat Bialik, Israel
To the Bird from a Distant Land was commissioned by the Atar Piano Trio for their program celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great pet Chaim Nachman Bialik. I composed the piece in response to his poem To the Bird (El HaTzipor), written when Bialik was just 19 years old and had recently moved to Odessa. There is a strong undercurrent of homesickness for the Biblical Aretz Israel of his imagination. The poem is episodic – variously referring to Bialy’s imaging of the distant land in both its beauty and potential difficulties, yet contrasting it again and again with his current situation. His ruminations move back and forth, taking flight like the bird he calls to. My response became a song without words, with the flight sometimes soaring, while at others caught in the darker moods of Bialik’s imaginings before taking wing again.

Weaver of Worlds, a Video by Lydia Moyer and Judith Shatin
2023-10-13 20:00 (America/New_York) | Old Cabell Hall, Room B018, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22903, United States
Weaver of Worlds is a collaboration of video artist Lydia Moyer and composer Judith Shatin. Having previously collaborated on Civil War Memories, Shatin approached Moyer about creating a video in partnership with her piece Hosech Al P’ney HaTehom (Darkness Upon the Face of the Deep). The music was crafted using direct digital synthesis – there are no samples; rather sound was created from signal. The resulting music nonetheless has elements that feel recognizable: sonic lightning, voices, a world coming into being. The video footage was shot and processed by Moyer on analog VHS equipment. She digitally edited and upscaled it in response to Shatin’s music, inspired by the story of Navajo weavers creating the world as they weave, leaving imperfections so that spirit has an entry point.

Kevin Lawrence Performs Rising on the Wings of Dawn
2023-10-10 19:30 (America/North_Dakota/Center) | Westbrook Recital Hall, Univeristy of Nebraska, 1113 R. St., Lincoln, NE, 68588, United States
UNC School of the Arts faculty Violinist Kevin Lawrence performs Rising on the Wings of Dawn on his programat the Korff School of Music of the University of Nebraska. . Based on the image from Psalm 139, this spiritual music rises from the lowest note of the violin up through the registrar stratosphere over the course of the piece. The concert also features music by Lawrence Dillon, Joan Wildman and William Grant Still.

Paul Kim Conducts the ODU Symphony Orchestra in Ice Becomes Water
2023-10-01 15:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | ODU University Theatre, 4700 Terminal Blvd, Norfolk, VA, 23508, United States
Conductor Paul Kim, leads Ice Becomes Water, scored for string orchestra and electronics fashioned from field recordings shared by glaciologist Oskar Glowacki, who studies the acoustic signatures of glaciers. Commissioned by the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, this piece reflects Shatin’s deep concern about the intensifying melting of glaciers and what this means for water supplies to millions. It is both a lament and a reflection on the power and threat of the melting process.

Saxophonist Jan Berry Baker and Percussionist Stuart Gerber Perform Of Wells & Springs
2023-09-29 19:30 (America/New_York) | Recital Hall, Fine Arts Center, FSU, 600 W. College AVe., Tallahassee, FL, United States
Of Wells and Springs takes its title (and the spelling of drouth) from environmentalist Wendell Berry’s poem, Water, from his collection, Farming: A Handbook. The poem tells of a terrible drouth, of the narrator’s mother waiting for men to bring water from distant springs, of his fear of recurring drouth and of his love of the water of ‘wells and springs.’ He closes the poem with the line ‘My sweetness is to wake in the night after days of dry heat, hearing the rain.’ My music responds to the experiences that Berry conveys so vividly—the fear of drouth and its anguish, the joy of rain and its sound, adding the potential danger it carries. Of Wells & Springs was commissioned in consortium with the lead Bent Frequency Duo of saxophonist Jan Berry Baker and percussionist Stuart Gerber as well as saxophonists Nicole M. Roman, and Drew Whiting, and percussionist/composer Kevin Norton

Mark Russell Smith Conducts Piping the Earth, with the UM Symphony Orchestra
2023-09-29 19:30 (America/North_Dakota/Center) | Ted Mann Concert Hall, 2128 S. 4th St., Minneapolis, MN, 55455, United States
Conductor Mark Russell Smith, conducts Piping the Earth with the University of Minnesota’s Symphony Orchestra at Ted Mann Hall. He will also conduct it on November 2 & 3 in performances with the Quad City Symphony. Inspired by the ancient Chinese text Chiang Tau, refers to the metaphor of the many sounds created by the wind as it moves through different spaces; yet the nature of the wind, remains constant. Premiered by the Women’s Philharmonic, led by JoAnn Falletta, the response to it was rapturous, including the following from the San Francisco Chronicle: “The evening’s high point came midway through the second half, with the premiere of Judith Shatin’s exuberant and captivating Piping the Earth. Vividly orchestrated and bursting with imaginative detail, the piece grabs a listener’s attention right from the opening moment,…” For more, visit here.

Saxophonist Drew Whiting and Percussionist Alison Shaw Perform Of Wells and Springs
2023-09-29 17:00 (America/New_York) | UW Oshkosh Music Hall, 1001 Elmwood Ave, Oshkosh
Saxophonist Drew Whiting, a member of the consortium that commissioned Of Wells and Springs will give his premiere of the piece with his colleague Alison Shaw on percussion on his faculty recital. The wide-ranging repertoire also includes music by Laura Schwendinger, Kyong Mee Choi, Alyssa Aska and Robin Heifetz.
I have had the pleasure of collaborating with Drew on his beautiful recording of For the Fallen on his album In Lights Starkly Different, and look forward to his and Alison’s interpretation of this new duet. The inspiration comes from Wendell Berry’s poem Water, a deeply personal poem that welcomes rain in the face of drouth (in the early spelling of the word). As climate change continues to intensify, the cycles of drouth and flood intensify, and the joy of rain that nourishes all of us is ever more welcome.

Saxophonist Jan Berry Baker & Percussionist Stuart Gerber Perform Of Wells & Springs
2023-09-28 19:30 (America/New_York) | Fine Arts Center Recital Hall, University of North Florida, 1 UNF Drive, Jacksonville, FL, United States

Flutist Lindsey Goodman Performs Peneleope's Song
2023-08-27 19:30 (America/New_York) | Otterbein University, Riley Auditorium, Westerville
Noted flutist Lindsey Goodman will perform Penelope’s Song, for amplified flute and electronics from weaving sounds, on her program The Electroacoustic Flutist at Otterbein University. She champions new music, especially combining flute and electronics, and has recorded both Penelope’s Song, with this version commissioned by her, as well as For the Fallen.

vayter un vayter at the Staunton Music Festival
2023-08-17 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | First Presbyterian Church 100 E. Frederick St., Staunton VA, 100 E. Frederick ST., United States
vayter un vayter will be performed at the Staunton Music Festival on their Song Fest program that also includes Britten’s Folksong Arrangements and J.S. Bach’s Cantata No. 51 for soprano, trumpet, strings and continuo. vayter un vayter is a setting of three powerful poems by Avrom Sutzkever in the original Yiddish. The first metaphorically contrasts good and evil in the form of two riders: one white and one black. The second, is a delicate, sad poem about a father telling his daughter to treasure her toys as he remembers a city with many dolls but not one child. The third questions “What remains?” Commissioned by Stonybrook Contemporary Chamber Players, it was most recently presented at the 2023 Staunton Music Festival. For more information visit here.

Program of Shatin's Flute Music at the National Flute Association Convention
2023-08-06 15:00 - 15:45 (America/New_York) | Phoenix Convention Center,, 100 N. 3rd ST., Phoenix
A program of Shatin’s flute music, organized by noted flutist Patricia Spencer, will be featured at the National Flute Association Convention in Phoenix, AZ. Three terrific flutists will perform: Lisa Bost, Sarah Brady and Leonard Garrison. Pieces include For the Fallen, Penelope’s Song, Gabriel’s Wing, Coursing through the Still Green and Grito del Corazon. Flute was one of the two instruments Shatin studied as a child, the other being piano. Composing for flute has led to multiple pieces over the years, from the early Singing Still to her concerto Ruah to pieces with electronics. These include Kairos (flute and interactive electronics, recorded by Patricia Spencer on her album Narcissus and Kairos, as well as Penelope’s Song and For the Fallen, both recorded by flutist Lindsey Goodman.

Christine Carter Performs Penelope's Song for the International Clarinet Association
2023-07-08 09:30 - 22:00 (America/Denver) | Westin Westminster Hotel, 10600 Westminster Boulevard, Westminster, CO, United States
Penelope’s Song, one of Shatin’s most popular pieces, will be performed in the version for clarinet and electronics. Recorded and popularized by clarinetist Andrea Cheeseman on her album Somewhere, it was recently performed by clarinetist Emily Jean Rose at the Charleston International 20th Century Music Competition in a performance that included the video by Kathy Aoki and Marco Marquez.

Soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon and Pianist Ryan McCullough Perform unter soreles vigele
2023-07-06 14:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | Rinzler Stage, Smithsonian Folklife Festival, National Mall, between 7th and 12th St., Washington, DC, United States
Soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon and pianist Ryan McCullough will perform unter soreles vigele on the program presented by YIVO at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival at the Rinzler Stage on the National Mall between 7th and 12th St. Commissioned by YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, as part of their Continuing Evolution Yiddish Folksong in Classical Music project, I chose to create my own interpretation of this folksong and to score it for mezzo and piano. It was given its digital premiere during the Pandemic by mezzo Annie Rosen & pianist Daniel Schlosberg, with the performance available here. It nd receives its live premiere on the Smithosonian program, and will be livestreamed. Additional information about this whimsical song and its Yiddish setting, is available here.

The Atar Trio Performs To the Bird from a Foreign Land
2023-06-27 18:30 (Asia/Jerusalem) | Cymbalista Synagogue and Jeriwsh Heritage Center, Tel Aviv University, Ramat AViv, Israel
The Atar Piano Trio and Soprano Tali Ketsef reprise their Bialik-themed concert at Tel Aviv University. Their commissioned piano trio, To the Bird from a Distant Land, was composed in response to Hayim Nahman Bialik’s iconic poem To the Bird (El HaTzipor). The poem, composed when Bialik was just 19, counterpoints his difficult situation in northern climes (Ukraine), with his imaginings of life in the land of Zion. The poem is episodic, moving back and forth between these two places, and between darkness and light. Yet, he also questions whether life in this far-off land is as wonderful as his dreams of it. My response to the poem became a song without words, with the flight of the bird sometimes soaring, while at others caught in the darker moods of Bialik’s imaginings before taking wing again. In the end, the bird and its flight came to represent the poet’s own flights of imagination.This program also features a beautiful assortment of music by Israeli composers, includingEran El-Bar, Aaron Harlap, Tzippi Fleischer and Alex Wasserman.

Soprano Amy Nelson and Violist Patricia McCarty Perform Come Live With Me
2023-06-24 19:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | Keene Arts, 10881 Route 73, Keene, NY, United States
Soprano Amy Nelson and violist Patricia McCarty, members of the Trillium Chamber Players, will perform Come Live with Me on June 24 at the Keen Arts Center. F ormerly titled Wedding Song, it is a setting of verses from Christopher Marlowe’s A Passionate Shepherd To His Love, drawn from the earliest printed version in the anthology titled The Passionate Pilgrim, published in 1599; the only variant is the addition of the word ‘come’ at the start, characteristic of later versions. This version for soprano and viola was recently recorded by opera singer Aleksandra Kubas-Kruk and violist Szymon Kruk. It has been performed both in concert settings and at weddings, and is available for mezzo as well as soprano, with a variety of instrumental accompaniments.

Enzo Filippetti Performs Storm
2023-06-21 20:30 (America/New_York) | The Loreto Theatre at the Sheen Center, 18 Bleecker ST., NYC, 10012, United States
Saxophonist Enzo Filippetti will give the NY premiere of Storm, for Tenor Sax and electronics, at the 2023 NYC Electroacoustic Festival in the Loreto Theatre at the Sheen Center in NYC. Premiered by Susan Fancher, it has also been performed by Tom Soloveitzik on an Ensemble Musica Nova program in Tel Aviv. Storm was inspired by the political storms raging throughout the world: extremism of all sorts, and the anguish they provoke.
