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2013 : Part I, Profile Susan Cohn Lackman Rollins College

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Published In Published originally in Journal of the International Alliance for Women in Music, vol. 19, no. 2 (2013): 1-3.

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Rollins Scholarship Online. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Rollins Scholarship Online. For more information, please contact [email protected]. In this issue: Elizabeth R. Austin Cécile Chaminade Tasoulla Christou Ariane Delaunois Deborah Hayes Asako Hirabayashi Cat Hope Heidi Jacob Susan Cohn Lackman M. Steele Moegle Marion von Tilzer Helen Walker-Hill Jing Wang Dolores White Judith Lang Zaimont Reviews Reports IAWM News Members’ News

9ROXPH1R‡ articles Judith Lang Zaimont: Part I, Profile SUSAN COHN LACKMAN

Take a brilliant and inquisitive mind, add several composers who arranged and com- new millennium include Honored Composer performing and creative musical talent, then posed for the duo.1 Their concert calendar in the 2001 Van Cliburn Competition, Aaron layer it with unquenchable energy and un- included performances around the US, ra- Copland Award in 2003, Bush Foundation flagging confidence, and the result is Judith dio and TV appearances, a Carnegie Hall Fellowship in 2005, Featured Composer at Lang Zaimont. Realizing early her good for- debut in 1963 with the Little Orchestra Eastman’s 2009 annual new-music festival, tune to have grown up in a locale as culture- Society in Carnival of the Animals, a two- and two national First Prizes for chamber mu- minded as , five-year-old Ju- season association with the TV Mitch Mill- sic and one of three American Prizes for Or- dith relentlessly pestered her mother, a fine er Show and the Concert for Two Pianos chestral Music in 2012. Her website, www. piano teacher, for lessons. Three years later recording, which included US premieres of jzaimont.com, contains a selected list of her she was performing in public, and three works by Poulenc and Casadesus. honors over time, including grants from the years after that she was winning prizes, to At age sixteen Judith entered Queens two National Endowments as both composer the extent that at age eleven she was flown College. Although the program only offered and author (The Musical Woman, vol. III). out to California to perform on the popu- a general music major with no particular Her natural confidence makes Zaimont lar Lawrence Welk Show. By the next year sub-concentration, she took theory classes a born teacher, and her thirty-six years in she had won a scholarship to the Juilliard with George Perle, Hugo Weisgall, and Leo academia include being named “Teacher of School’s preparatory division, studying Kraft, and studied Schenkerian analysis the Year” at Peabody Conservatory along with Rosina Lhevinne and Leland Thomp- with Felix Salzer. Though she wasn’t able the way. The demands she places on her- son, and about this time Judith began com- to study composition there, after graduat- self as composer and as performer she also posing and soon was winning prizes for her ing magna cum laude at age twenty with a places on herself as an educator. Studying original work. The prelude to her life, with fistful of music prizes, a Woodrow Wilson with her is part-philosophy, part-nurturing, its pattern of diligence, musical sensitivity, Fellowship and an Anton Seidl Fellowship and all about craft. Inspiration, she be- and fearlessness, all infused with exuber- allowed her to enter , lieves, arises in significant ways from deep ance, already indicated the “musical wom- where her only formal composition les- knowledge of a medium, and from defining an” Judith was to become. sons took place with Jack Beeson and Otto for oneself the parameters governing how While at Juilliard and barely into their Luening. Completing a master’s degree in to construct the problem the piece intends teens, Judith and her sister Doris were composition at age twenty-two, she later to solve. She equally stresses her many paired as a duo-piano team under profes- was awarded the Debussy Fellowship from editorial visits with a piece in various de- sional management; Judith was one of the Alliance française to study orchestration velopmental stages so that the work can for a year in Paris with be made “ever finer, more striking, more Judith Lang Zaimont on Video André Jolivet. original.”2 She elicits from her students (The selections below are primarily live performances.) Her career is beyond what they consider possible: “You ZONES, Piano Trio No. 2, mvt. 3, “Temperate” studded with prizes either rise up to snuff, or you break. You and awards. As the must always continue to match an interna- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HfcOn_yPrc 3 “Growler” from Symphony for Wind Orchestra in Three Scenes oldest child in a fam- tional standard of excellence.” Video title: Beasts, premiere 2003, University of Min- ily of quite modest Following her career as professor at nesota Symphonic Wind Ensemble means, the only way Queens College, Peabody Conservatory of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vA5DIc1SNg to move forward in Music (Johns Hopkins University), chair of String Quartet “The Figure,” mvt. 1, “In Shadow” her chosen field was the music department at Adelphi University, Premiere 2007, Harlem String Quartet to go head-to-head and overseeing the composition program at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNRxenK-5q8 with other talented the University of Minnesota School of Mu- “Folderol” from Parallel Play for Saxophone Quartet composers in the most sic, Zaimont moved to Maricopa, Arizona in Presidio Saxophone Quartet open and competitive 2005. Here she set up a quiet place where https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze28ut2BGso environments in order she could focus on her composition and “set Wizards – Three Magic Masters to gain notice and to out to write pieces [she] needed to write, Young-Ah Tak, piano solo obtain funding for her even if they weren’t commissioned.” Even https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaNAZ-EoVRE work—and to do this if they weren’t commissioned! For many often and regularly. It composers, not being commissioned is a Zaimont playing Zaimont: is not surprising, then, matter of course, but Zaimont’s talent and Chansons nobles et sentimentales, mvt. 3, “Clair de Lune” to find her dossier re- determination to succeed is so well known Video title: The Joy of Dance. Charles Bressler, tenor plete with accolades, that she can start on a piece, knowing it will https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw9uOqXNuig many of which are ultimately receive a commission no later Serenade (piano solo) recent; for example, than mid-project. As she points out, she nev- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkkhcZzv3DE those at the start of the er writes just for the premiere or one set of

Lackman: Judith Lang Zaimont: Part I, Profile 1 performers at one specific time: “If I am not the Elizabeth and Michel Sorel Charitable ance, satisfying proportion? She quotes writing something I firmly believe will be a Organization, Inc. Since her compositions from Of Beauty by Francis Bacon: “There durable and prime addition to repertoire, I in their original versions are done entirely is no excellent beauty that hath not some won’t even begin work on the piece.” in pen and paper, the cost for calligraphy strangeness in the proportion.” Strangeness Her music is attractive and well- to prepare the symphony’s published ver- of course means “distinction, specificity,” formed, the thorny sections compelling, sion is covered through a successful crowd- the non generic. In a moment of curiosity and the accessible music setting the mind to sourced project undertaken through www. about her response to two other composers’ contemplative journeys, and she herself sees unitedstatesartists.org. works (“fascinating, but boring”), Zaimont it as always tonally moored in some fashion. Just as she is a teacher, so is Zaimont studied these composers’ scores to see if More than one critical writer, considering a student: At times she undertakes self- she could detect the problems (one with a the original and expanded chromatic lattice, study projects prior to composing; for glacially slow harmonic rhythm, and one invention in form, and many-layered con- example, before she wrote SONATA she with a flow without beat). She then wrote struction, has termed her style “Romantic played through and charted all the devel- Stillness, an eighteen-minute poem for or- Modernism.”4 A large number of record- opment sections from every Beethoven chestra. Boring? Not if you believe the crit- ings of her works are available on the web piano sonata movement cast in true so- ic who wrote, “A highly rewarding work as CDs, mp3 downloads, and YouTube vid- nata form. Her purpose was to check the that engages the interest of the listener eos, which pair husband Gary Zaimont’s proportion of developments in relation to throughout.”5 Driven by “great faith in the artwork with Judith’s compositions. that of their surrounding expositions and quality” of what she writes, she is clear that When asked about pieces she consid- recapitulations. What makes for good bal- you have to “appreciate what others have ers her “signature works,” Zaimont replies that the “pieces that are most me are often my first try in writing in that genre.” Among these she in- cludes SONATA for piano (1999); the second piano trio, ZONES (1985); El- egy from her Second Sym- phony (2001); Growler, from the Wind Symphony (2003); Saxophone Quar- tet (1999); the dance sym- phony Hidden Heritage (1987); the cantata Par- able – A Tale of Abram and Isaac (1986); and String Quartet “The Fig- ure” (2007). The Quartet is cited by the composer as a recent example of one of her most representative works. The opening of movement one, “In Shad- ow,” sets forth the work’s central musical figure (see Example 1). Her current project is Pure, Cool (Wa- ter) – Symphony No. 4, a five-movement work, now in its final phases of prepa- ration, which explores the differing naturally-occur- ring states of water. The 2014 Sorel Commission has already been awarded to this symphony, a major commissioning grant from Example 1. String Quartet “The Figure,” movement 1, “In Shadow”

2 IAWM Journal Volume 19, No. 2 2013 done before you,” and “you must feel you name of the publisher and “began perform- Her books include the well-known three- can add to the genre.” ing it sometime in 1988 in Europe and the volume series The Musical Woman: An In- Zaimont continues to teach and to adju- USA, always to favorable response.” After ternational Perspective (Greenwood Press, dicate composition competitions. This past a later encounter with Zaimont’s Calendar 1994, 1987, 1991) and the 2011 e-book year, after judging an international choral Collection, she commented that the works written with Rachel S. Heller, Click, Flip, composition competition and the national “gave me a glimpse at these preludes de- RUSH – Reclaiming Clarity in the Hyper- finals of an orchestral composition contest, signed for ‘the developing pianist.’ That first link Age. Her keynote addresses and speech- she came away from both a bit discouraged. edition was published by Alfred and includ- es become articles in widely-read journals. “I love difference in music, something that ed exercises to go along with each prelude, Zaimont believes “the creative mindset in- is fresh, new, distinct.” But what she found something I had only seen in the old Alfred forms all of life,” and her motto is: “Make was “a sea change—we seem to have gone Cortot editions of the Chopin Preludes and something happen that didn’t exist before.” from facing forward to facing backward.” Etudes.”6 Her curiosity prompted Moak to Since moving to Maricopa she and two mu- She deemed only one orchestral entry as complete her doctoral research and recital sician neighbors founded a conductor-less properly skillful and inventive, and she was on Zaimont’s music, and after decades of chamber orchestra, which now performs disappointed that no one was writing non- performing this music Moak writes, “I am regularly in and around Maricopa. She was tonal music. She remarked, “I like people continually attracted to Zaimont’s work also a key player in bringing together Mari- who take chances and don’t mine a garden because she makes the piano live, breathe, copa’s creative, fine and performing artists that’s already been planted for centuries.” and resonate. These qualities, as well as the in 2012 for city showcases, and in 2013 Growing up as a collaborative pianist well-crafted aspect of the music, make it a founding the new Maricopa ARTS Council and performer, Zaimont is a composer who pleasure to play. There is also quite a wide (where she is co-director). requires her performers to bring their selves variety of types of pieces, so it makes for “Don’t talk about it—do it!” Zaimont’s to the music, to really dig beneath the dots interesting programming.” energy and efficiency arise from a stern on the staff in order to get the best perfor- Composing remains a daily activity for self-discipline evident very early in life: mance. Elizabeth Moak, Professor of Piano Zaimont: “I write 364 days a year, except she realized at age eleven that she was at the University of Mississippi, is a cur- for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atone- born to be a composer. And it is as if she rent Zaimont champion. An early convert ment.” As a young mother in the 1980s she has a list of aphorisms that keep her going: to Zaimont’s music, she had been captured would grab moments when the house was “Work outside the established frame of ref- by a performance of Nocturne: La Fin de quiet and closet herself in the basement with erence—do the thing that didn’t exist be- Siècle when she was a student in Peabody’s a desk and piano, composing sometimes un- fore.” Add in her mother’s watchword: “If master’s program. Even after several years, til two in the morning. “Everybody’s busy,” you can’t go through, go around!” along while living and studying in Switzerland, she she says, noting that Archimedes was in his with Zaimont’s own, “Believe in yourself: could not get the Nocturne out of her mind. bath when he came up with his method of this is your identity! You make the outlines In 1987 she wrote to the composer asking measuring density. of the box.” To listen to Judith Zaimont how to find the score. Moak recounts that And the ink continues to flow, even speak is to be in the company of an unstop- she received a lovely letter in return with the beyond music manuscripts. She blogs. pable, unwavering power. NOTES 1. Doris Lang Kosloff, a thoughtful and superb conductor, is now conductor and coach in Hartt School of Music’s opera program. 2. Judith Lang Zaimont, “Composer: Liv- ing American Woman,” New Music Box, web- zine of the American Music Center (November/ December 2005). 3. Zaimont, telephone interview with the author, August 7, 2013. Subsequent quotations are from the same telephone interview. 4. David DeBoor Canfield, Review, FAN- FARE (September/October 2012). 5. Ibid. 6. Elizabeth Moak, e-mail correspondence with the author, September 25, 2013. Susan Cohn Lackman, Ph.D., M.B.A., is Profes- sor of Theory and Composition at Rollins Col- lege, Winter Park, Florida. Audiences from Bos- ton to Beijing have heard her music in concert, and her essays about music have been enrich- ing and delighting concert-goers for years. She served as treasurer and board member of the IAWM, and is now Director of the Sigma Alpha Iota Composers Bureau, an IAWM affiliate.

Lackman: Judith Lang Zaimont: Part I, Profile 3