Judith Shatin

New Amsterdam Singers gives the New York premiere of La Frontera
2023-03-19 16:00 - 17:30 (America/New_York) | Broadway Presbyterian Church, Broadway at 114th St., NY, NY
La Frontera (The Border), the choral setting of a poem by an undocumented youth held in an American maximum security detention center, will receive it’s east coast premiere by the outstanding New Amsterdam Singers, led by Clara Longstreth on a program called The World of Dreams. It received its world premiere by the LA Master Chorale and I have posted the performance by the Illinois Wesleyan University Collegiate Singers led by J. Scott Ferguson, You can hear it and see the poem and its translation by Seth Michelson here.

New Amsterdam Singers gives the NY premiere of La Frontera
2023-03-16 20:00 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | Broadway Presbyterian Church, Broadway at 114th St., NY, NY

Saxophonist Drew Whiting performs For the Fallen
2023-03-09 19:30 - 21:00 (America/Chicago) | Ganz Hall, Roosevelt University; Chicago, IL., 430 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL, United States
Featured saxophonist Drew Whiting performs For the Fallen on the Chicago Composers Consortium’s Electroacoustic music Concert New Sounds New Instruments. For the Fallen is scored for amplified soprano sax and electronics fashioned from the Peace Bell in Rovereto, It. Originally fashioned from cannons melted after WWII, it is rung ever day in remembrance of the fallen in all wars. Other composers on the program include Trevor Adams, Amos Gillespie,Timothy Ernest Johnson, Ed Martin, Kyong Mee Choi and more! Drew’s beautiful recording of For the Fallen can be heard on his terrific album In Lights Starkly Different on the usual streaming services.

Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble Performs Werther
2023-03-08 19:30 (Europe/London) | Harty Room Queen’s University Belfast, University Road, Belfast, Ireland
Werther, scored for Pierrot Ensemble, was inspired by Goethe’s novel, in particular the writhing emotions embodied in Romanticism, and so clearly expressed her. The clash of classes and the economics system are which they are based are woven here into Werther’s striving for the unobtainable love of Lotte. My music responds to both the lyrical elements and psychological anguish of the narrative. IT is in line with my own musical evolution in which lived experience, whether vicarious or immediate, is a core element of expression.
This program, performed by the Hard Rain SoloistEnsemble, celebrates International Women’s Day, also includes music by Thea Musgrave, Katie Agócs and Irish composers Gráinne Mulvey, Amy Rooney and Ann Cleare. I have frequently been asked how I feel about concerts of music that only include works by women. While I look for the day when gender celebration will not be needed and gender isolation will not be an issue, I have two responses:

I welcome any performances by outstanding musicians, as is the case here.
I don’t hear anyone asking men how they feel about being on programs that only include men!

Patricia McCarty Premieres the Viola Version of For the Birds, 2 Movements
2023-02-18 17:30 - 18:30 (America/Denver) | Courtney Collins Fine Art, 32 Town Center Ave, Big Sky, Montana
Patricia McCarty arranged two movements of For the Birds (Songbirds and Waterbirds) for viola, rather than the original cello, and electronics, and premieres it on her program at Courtney Collins Fine Art in Big Sky, Montana, for the opening of an exhibit of paintings by George Hill. She will also perform music by Bach, Hovaness, Piazzolla, Michel Kimer, Reena Esmail, Jeremy Cohen and more. Find out more about For the Birds, with links to recordings, here.

Blue Air on TechnoSonics XXIII
2023-02-03 13:45 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | Rotunda Dome Room, University of Virginia, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22903, United States
Blue Air, a video collaboration of Judith Shatin and artist SoHyun Bae will be presented on TechnoSonics XXIII, the annual showcase of faculty, grad student and guest composers started by Shatin in 1999. Shatin and Bae became friends at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, where they were studio neighbors and decided to collaborate on this piece, first shown at the 2022 NYC Electroacoustic Festival. The title is drawn from Edith Wharton’s poem A Meeting, where they ‘…drink the blue transcendent air together…’ More information is available here. Guest artists include Andy Slater and Erica Gressman. The program runs from 12:00 p.m. on 2/3 to 12:00 p.m. on 2/4 in the Dome Room of the Rotunda at the University of Virginia.

ConScience Choir at MTU Performs Hark My Love and La Frontera
2022-12-09 19:30 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | Rosza Center for the Performing Arts, 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI, 49931, United States
ConScience Choir, directed by Jared Anderson at Michigan Technological University, will perform Hark My Love and La Frontera on their program Songs for the Moon, including two selections from the concert of music by Shatin during her October 2022 residency. Hark my Love is a setting of beautiful verses from the Song of Songs that can also be heard on the Milken Archive Recording of Jewish Music, on Psalms and Canticles (Volume 18, Album 2). La Frontera is a setting of a poem published in the book Dreaming America, The poem is by an undocumented youth trying to immigrate but winding up in maximum security detention. Profits from this piece go to the CAIR Coalition’s Detained Children Program (caircoalition.org), to help children detained at the Office of Refugee Resettlement detention centers in Maryland and Virginia.
Here is the livestream link for the Michigan Tech Choirs.

U of Arizona Fred Fox Graduate Brass Quintet Performs Fantasia sobre el Flamenco
2022-12-04 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Phoenix) | Holsclaw Hall, Fred Fox School of Music, 1017 North Olive Rd, Tuscon, Arizona, United States
The University of Arizona Fred Fox Graduate Brass Quintet Performs Fantasia sobre el Flamenco on their December 4th program. Livestream here. Inspired by a trip to Granada at Festival time, with flamenco dancing and spirited music in abundance, the resultant Fantasia Sore El Flamenco was commissioned by Jeffrey Silberschlag for St. Mary’s Brass, who premiered and recorded it. There are versions for the traditional scoring of 2 trumpets, horn, trombone and tuba, as well as 2 trumpets, 2 trombones and tuba.

Pianist Seunghye Kim Performs Plain Song
2022-12-03 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | James Wise Art Gallery at Norfolk State University, 700 Park Ave., Norfolk, 23504, United States
Pianist Seunghye Kim performs Plain Song, for amplified piano & electronics fashioned from 4 poems read by Charles Wright which the composer recorded at the Sound Studio in Charlottesville. The text is clear throughout, though it has been subtly processed with some phrases repeated and and sonically treated. This is part of a program of piano and text, that also includes the Forgetting Pieces of Brian Simalchik, To Unformed by Kyong Mee Choi, Nostalgic Visions by Elaine Lillios and She Persisted by Annie Neikirk.

Susan Merdinger Tours Chai Variations on Eliahu HaNavi
2022-11-21 12:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | The Atenaeum, 1008 Wall St., LaJolla, 92037, United States
Pianist Susan Merdinger is touring her Four Centuries of Variations program, with Chai Variations on Eliahu HaNavi representing the 20th Century. This unique piece gives performers the opportunity to choose the order of the variations within the frame of opening and closing versions of the theme. It has been called a “…magnificent piece of piano music that should be in many, many pianists’ repertoires .” (Colin Clarke, Fanfare). To learn more and listen to Nathan Carterette’s interpretation visit here.

Susan Merdinger Tours Chai Variations on Eliahu HaNavi
2022-11-12 19:30 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | Sunset Music and Arts, Incarnation Episcopal Church, San Francisco, 1750 29th Ave., San Francisco, CA, 94122, United States

I-Jen Fang Performs Adventure on Mt. Hehuan at PASIC
2022-11-10 17:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | Indiana Convention Center Room 120, 500 South Capitol Avenue, Indianapolis, United States
Percussionist I-Jen Fang will perform Adventure on Mt. Hehuan with Judith on the electronics at PASIC 2022 – the huge confab of percussionists. PASIC stands for the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, and it showcases all areas of percussion. You can find the premiere i of this exciting piece, see the score and learn more about it here. The interactive elements draw on a Max patch created in consultation with the composer by composer/techologist Maxwell Tfirn.

I-Jen Performs the World Premiere of the Solo Adventure on Mt. Hehuan
2022-11-04 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | NIU Music Building, Boutell Memorial Concert Hall, 550 Lucinda Ave., DeKalb
Percussionist I-Jen Fang will perform the world premiere of the solo version of Adventure on Mt. Hehuan on the Northern Illinois New Music Festival. You can find the premiere i of this exciting piece and see the score here. Adventure on Mt. Hehuan (Mountain of Joy in Chinese), named for a mountain in Taiwan, is scored for solo bass drum and optional interactive electronics. Adventure on Mt. Hehuan speaks to the joy in the journey of timbral exploration undertaken in studies with I-Jen. The image of the mountain itself was inspired by beautiful paintings by I-Jen’s father.

Pianist Susan Merdinger Tours Chai Variations on Eliahu HaNavi
2022-11-04 12:00 - 14:00 (America/New_York) | Fourth Prebyterian Church, 126 E. Chestnut ST., Chicago, IL, 60611, United States

Pianist Susan Merdinger Tours Chai Variations on Eliahu HaNavi
2022-10-23 15:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | Northbrook Public Library, 1201 Cedar Lane, Northbrook, IL, United States

Saxophonist Joseph Lyons Performs Penelope's Song
2022-10-14 16:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | W.W. Hootie Johnson Performance Hall, 1014 Greene St. level1, Columbia, United States
Saxophonist Joseph Lyons performs Penelope’s Song at the American Single Reed Summit at the University of South Carolina. The piece is a tribute to Penelope, wife of Odysseus, who staved off suitors during the two-decade absence of Odysseus. Shatin fashioned the electronics by processing recordings she made of Charlottesville-based weaver Jan Russell working at her wooden looms. For more information, visit the composition page.

Fulcrumpoint New Music Project presents Terra Infirma
2022-10-12 19:30 - 21:30 (America/New_York) | Rhapsody Theatre, 1328 W. Morse Ave., Chicago, United States
Fulcrumpoint New Music Project will give the Chicago premiere of Terra Infirma on their program Terra on their program Terra Infirma: Healing the Earth following its world premiere at Michigan Technological University. Scored for instrumental septet and electronics fashioned from animal calls and the sounds of the Great Lakes, the piece responds to the endangerment of both the fauna and the Great Lakes themselves. Climate change has already changed the ecology, while habitat loss, pollution and overuse have caused critical problems. This concert, led by Stephen Burns, also includes music that speaks to these issues by Derek Bermel, Paul Oehlers and Emily Doolittle.

Residency & Concert of Shatin's Music at Michigan Technological University
2022-10-08 19:30 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | Rosza Center for the Performing Arts, 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, MI, 49931, United States
This concert is part of a Shatin residency at Michigan Technological University that includes multiple performances as well as a composition master class and meetings with composition and theory students. This concert of Shatin’s music features the world premiere of Terra Infirma, commissioned by MTU in partnership with the Great Lakes Research Center. Scored for septet and electronics fashioned from the calls of the fauna and sounds of the Great Lakes, it focuses primarily on the endangered animals.
The concert also includes two electroacoustic pieces for Saxophone, performed by Patrick Booth. These are Storm (tenor sax and electronics ) and Penelope’s Song (soprano sax and electronics fashioned from weaving sounds). In addition, there are two choral pieces, La Frontera and Hark My Love, performed by the MTU Chorus directed by Jared Anderson. This repertoire features some of my most cherished genres: acoustic/electroacoustic music and text setting. And, in the latter, La Frontera speaks to the difficulties faced by so many trying to immigrate to the United States, difficulties which have persisted for centuries. Hark My Love, in contrast, is a setting of beautiful verses from the Song of Songs, in line with the theme of spirituality.

Cellist Adam Hall performs For the Birds
2022-10-07 18:00 - 20:00 (America/New_York) | New Music in the Mine, Michigan Technological University, 49750 US Highway 41,, Hancock, MI, 49930, United States
Cellist Adam Hall will perform For the Birds in New Music in the Mine at Michigan Technological University. For the Birds, is an hommage to birds, represented here by birds of the Yellowstone region. Many are in steep decline due to habitat loss and climate change.The four movements focus on different types of birds: Songbirds, Sapsuckers, Birds of Prey and Water Birds. To learn more and listen to the fourth movement, go here. Tickets are pay as you are able!

Cellist Adam Hall performs For the Birds
2022-10-06 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | New Music in the Mine, Michigan Technological University, 49750 US Highway 41,, Hancock, MI, 49930, United States
Cellist Adam Hall will perform For the Birds in New Music in the Mine at Michigan Technological University. For the Birds, is an hommage to birds, represented here by birds of the Yellowstone region. Many are in steep decline due to habitat loss and climate change. The four movements focus on different types of birds: Songbirds, Sapsuckers, Birds of Prey and Water Birds. To learn more and listen to the fourth movement, go here. Tickets are pay as you are able!

YIVO Presents the New York premiere of vayter un vayter
2022-09-11 13:00 - 14:30 (America/New_York) | YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY, 10011, United States
This program commemorates the Jewish community of Vilna through poetry, music and presentation, the latter by Justin Cammy. Performers include bass-baritone Adrian Rosas and pianist Ya-Jhu Yang. Commissioned by Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, vayter un vayter is a setting of three powerful poems by Avrom Sutzkever, set in the original Yiddish. You will notice that there are no capital letters in the transliteration, as they do not exist in Yiddish. The first poem is es clop di shleyfn (My Head is Throbbing), the second is shpiltsayg (toys) and the third is ver vet blaybn (What Remains?). The first is a dark and intense poem about good and evil; the second is a touching poem from father to daughter, with both delicate images and tragic darkness; the third is a rich reflection on faith and eternity tinged with irony. For more information visit the composition page.
The program is free both in person and on zoom, though both require registration, which you can do here.

Flutist Lindsey Goodman Performs Penelope's Song at the NFA Chicago Convention
2022-08-12 16:45 - 17:30 (America/New_York) | Hilton Chicago Downtown, 720 S Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL, 60605, United States
Flutist Lindsey Goodman is featured in a solo recital at the invitation of the National Flute Association on their Golden Anniversary Convention in Chicago. Penelope’s Song, in the version for amplified flute and electronics fashioned from weaving sounds, will be featured on her program. Also included on the program is wonderfully varied music by Deemer, Merkowitz, Oxford, Zilnick, Woolf, and Kernohan.
Penelope’s Song is available in versions for violin, viola, cello, and soprano sax, as well as flute. This dramatic piece is one of Shatin’s most popular. Lindsey recorded it on her CD Reach Through The Sky, and you can find it on Spotify and other streaming platforms.

World Premiere Zipper Music Quartet
2022-07-30 18:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Dublin) | Unit 44, 44 Park Shopping Center, Prussia St., Dublin, Ireland
The Kirkos Ensemble will premiere Zipper Music Quartet, for 4 amplified zipper players and interactive electronics on their 10th birthday program at UNIT 44 in Dublin as part of their 10th anniversary celebration. Part of my Quotidian Series, this piece plays with the wonderful timbral aspects of zippers, with interactive electronics expanding their timbral worlds.

Blue Air Premieres at New York City Electronic Music Festival
2022-06-24 20:00 - 22:30 (America/New_York) | The Loreto Theatre at the Sheen Center, 18 Bleecker ST., NYC, 10012, United States
Blue Air is a video collaboration by artist SoHyun Bae and composer Judith Shatin. They first became acquainted years go, while in residence at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Fast forward to a couple of years ago when they decided to collaborate. Judith recorded SoHyun painting in her studio as well as their conversation. A dynamic, iterative and collaborative process resulted in Blue Air, as image and sound merged, as described in Edith Wharton’s poem A Meeting, where they ‘…drink the blue transcendent air together….’
The New York City Electronic Music Festival is a remarkable annual showcase of innovative music ranging from those with digital elements to those that are exclusively digital, as in this case. This wide-ranging concert also includes music by Maurice Wright, Hubert Howe, Andrew May, Akira Taoka, Benjamin Broening and more! For more about the program visit NYCEMF. For more info about the piece visit Blue Air.

Tape Music on Spatial Music Concert
2022-06-14 19:30 - 21:00 (Europe/Dublin) | Unit 44, 44 Park Shopping Center, Prussia St., Dublin, Ireland
The surround-sound piece Tape Music will be featured by the Kirkos Ensemble on their Spatial Music concert at Unit 44 in Dublin. Part of Shatin’s Quotidian Music series, the sound sources all come from different types of tape being torn and distressed in various ways. The focus of this series is on music created from the sounds of every-day life. Each sound source is featured on a family of pieces including digital and electroacoustic pieces, with the latter performable by those without music training. For more information about Tape Music visit here. Other composers on the program include Michele Abondano, Peter P’Doherty, Clovis McEvoy, Aoibhin Redmond and more!

World Premiere of Kassia at Pittsburgh's August Wilson Center
2022-05-21 19:00 - 21:00, 2022-05-21 14:00 - 17:00 (America/New_York) | August Wilson Center, 980 Liberty Ave., Pittsburgh, PA, 15222, United States
After two Covid-related postponement, the Kassia Ensemble will present a video premiere of Kassia, their first commission for their entire ensemble of clarinet, harp and string quintet. Kassia was inspired by the ensemble’s namesake, the 9th-century Byzantine Abbess, poet and hymnographer, and likely the first woman whose music has survived until now. There are references to motifs from two of her major chants, as well as nods to rhythmic shapes in their poetry, though the final piece is a meditation on the spiritual life in both its soaring meditations and challenges. For more information, visit here. The video will be presented prior to the performance of Missy Mazzoli’s opera Song From The Uproar at the August Wilson Center in Pittsburgh, PA.

YIVO Presents Live Concert Premiere (+ Livestream) of unter soreles wigele (Under Sarah's Cradle)
2022-05-18 19:00 - 21:00 (America/New_York) | YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 15 West 16th Street, New York, NY, 10011, United States
unter soreles wigele (Under Sarah”s Cradle) is a setting of a traditional Yiddish poem that plays on the folk melody associated with it, but in a contemporary context. It was commissioned by YIVO, Institute for Jewish Research as part of their project Continuing Evolution: Yiddish Folksong Today. It was first presented by YIVO as a digital premiere on 6/30/2019 with Annie Rosen, mezzo and Daniel, Schlosberg, piano. You can find their performance here at 4:09. The live concert premiere will be by members of the Bard Graduate Vocal Arts Program at the Center for Jewish History. In addition to the live performance, you can register to view the performance online here.YIVO’s Continuing Evolution: Yiddish Folksong Today is a music festival celebrating Yiddish folksong. The festival includes premieres of contemporary classical works reimagining Yiddish folksongs; classic compositions which engage with Yiddish folksongs; little-known settings of Yiddish folksongs from YIVO’s archival collections; discussions of archival work related to the study and preservation of Yiddish folksong; and performances by contemporary artists engaged with Yiddish folksong.

Da Capo Chamber Players Perform Gregor's Dream at Merkin Hall in NYC
2022-05-10 20:00 - 22:00 (America/New_York) | Merkin Hall – Kaufman Music Center, 129 W 67th St., New York, NY, 10023, United States
Bridging Styles
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David Sanford – New work
Jason Eckardt – Rendition (new complexity)
Judith Shatin – Gregor’s Dream (amplified piano trio with electronics)
Elliott Carter – Con leggerezza pensosa (old complexity)
Steve Reich – Double Sextet (minimalism)
Da Capo Chamber Players perform Gregor’s Dream, scored for amplified piano trio and electronics, as part of their 50th Anniversary Season!

Gregor’s Dream, for amplified piano trio and stereo electronics, was commissioned by the Atar Trio for their project Dream within a Dream. It was inspired by Kafka’s Metamorphosis, where Gregor Samsa wakes from an anxious dream to find himself transformed into a bug. I fashioned the electronics from field recordings shared by bioacousticians Martin Brandstetter, Jayne Yack and Amanada Lindeman. Fear of the ‘other’ permeates the tale and is a crucial reminder in our tribalistic times. The Atar Trio toured Gregor’s Dream in America and Israel, while other performances include those at the Aspen Music Festival, the International Computer Music Festival in Daegu KOR, and the at Trinity Chapel, Trinity College Dublin where it was performed by the Kirkos Ensemble on a program of the IAWM.

Judith Featured on Composers Now Impact Series Digital Premiere
2022-05-05 12:00 - 12:35 (America/New_York) | VA
You can join the livestream for the world premiere of Judith’s segment on the Composers Now Impact Series and hear her talk about her music as well as share some performance videos. She will be in the chat during the premiere to answer questions. This talk focuses on responding to the challenges and events of the world around us. While not all of her music does so, it is an important thread, especially now.
