Judith Shatin is a composer, sound artist, community arts partner, and educator. Her music, called “something magical” by Fanfare, reflects her multiple fascinations with literature and visual arts, the sounding world, and the social and communicative power of music. Collaborations with musicians, artists, and communities are central to her work.
Choral music has figured increasingly in her work, including a recent commission from the University of Virginia University Singers for Birkat Hakohanim, a setting of The Priestly Blessing in the original Hebrew. Her catalog includes numerous pieces for SATB chorus, treble chorus and a setting of the Jabberwocky for TTBB. Her setting of Psalm 23, Adonai Ro’i, is featured on the New World CD “Divine Grandeur,” conducted by Judith Clurman. Her setting of Edward Lear’s The Jumblies, scored for SSA and piano, was commissioned by the Palo Alto Women’s Chorus, while her setting of Gertrude Stein’s I Am Rose, for SSA and electronics, was commissioned by the San Francisco Girls Chorus. Her Allelulia, included in the Project : Encore catalog, was composed in memory of a firefighter who died on 9/11, while responding to the disaster at the World Trade Center.
Shatin’s music, ranging from chamber and orchestral to electroacoustic and multimedia, has been featured at festivals including the Aspen, BAM Next Wave, Grand Teton, Havana in Spring, and many others. Orchestras that have performed her music include the Denver, Houston, Illinois, Knoxville, Minnesota, National, and Richmond Symphonies. Her music can be heard on numerous labels, and has been commissioned by groups including the Ash Lawn Opera, Barlow Foundation, Core Ensemble, Kronos Quartet, Music-at-LaGesse Foundation, the National Symphony, Hexagon Ensemble, Virginia Chamber Orchestra, and Wintergreen Performing Arts.
Educated at Douglass College (AB, Phi Beta Kappa), The Juilliard School (MM,) and Princeton University (PhD), Shatin is William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor and Founding Director of the Virginia Center for Computer Music at the University of Virginia. A strong 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) and currently sits on the board of the Atlantic Center for the Arts. In demand as a master teacher, she has been featured through the BMI residency at Vanderbilt university and as senior composer for the Wellesley Composers Conference.
Shatin has been honored with four National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships as well as awards from the American Music Center, Fromm Foundation, 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 were sponsored by the Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Arts Partners Program. Her music is published by Arsis Press, C.F. Peters, Colla Voce, E.C. Schirmer, Hal Leonard, and Wendigo Music. Her work is included in Women of Influence in Contemporary Music, Nine American Composers (Scarecrow Press, 2010).
Photo by Mary Noble Ours
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