Search - Amernet String Quartet, Misha Vitenson (solo violin), Jason Calloway (solo cello) :: Amernet Plays Judith Lang Zaimont

The music of Judith Lang Zaimont is dramatic and color-forward, expressing a wide range of distilled emotion with immediate impact. Even when it moves towards non-tonality, the way it develops to reach the eventual goal reveals underlying tonal pulls. Only in the last two decades has Zaimont's music turned clearly string-forward. Both her second and sixth symphonies are for orchestral strings, and her two string quartets, which she terms 'emblem' works, were written within the past eleven years. Each quartet serves as overt contrast to the other, and each reveals a particular aspect of Zaimont's artistic personality. The Amernet String Quartet has garnered recognition as one of today's most highly regarded chamber ensembles. Consisting of violinists Misha Vitenson and Franz Felkl, violist Michael Klotz and cellist Jason Calloway, they have performed across the Americas and in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, appearing at prominent venues and international festivals. Amernet has collaborated with numerous prominent artists and ensembles, including the Tokyo String Quartet and Ying Quartet, as quartet soloist with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under Alan Gilbert, and with Roberto Diaz, Gary Hoffman, Ida Kavafian, Anthony McGill, Sherrill Milnes and Michael Tree of the Guarneri Quartet. Early in their career, the ensemble won the Gold Medal at the Tokyo International Music Competition and First Prize at the Banff International String Quartet Competition. The Amernet Quartet, always committed to the music of our time, has commissioned works from leading composers, including Anthony Brandt, John Corigliano, Orlando Garcia, John Harbison, Pierre Jalbert, Bernard Rands, Morton Subotnick, Dmitri Tymoczko and Judith Lang Zaimont with all working closely in performance and recording. Currently Ensemble-in-Residence at Florida International University in Miami, the quartet has previously enjoyed appointments with Northern Kentucky University and University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, and as the Ernst Stiefel Quartet-in-Residence at the Caramoor Center for the Arts. Their current season includes tours throughout Europe and Latin America, return engagements throughout the United States and Israel, and premieres of several new works. The music of Judith Lang Zaimont, performed worldwide, is distinguished by a spirit of rhapsody, featuring sudden shifts in texture, instrumental coloring and atmosphere; it is widely acclaimed for its dynamism and emotion. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, and growing up in New York, Zaimont began piano studies with her mother, and then continued at Juilliard's Preparatory Division with Rosina Lhevinne. Formal composition study was undertaken in graduate school at Columbia University with Otto Luening and Jack Beeson. Her large catalog of more than 120 works, many of which are prizewinners, includes music in every genre. Her awards in composition include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Aaron Copland Award, awards from both National Endowments, the Debussy Fellowship of the Alliance Française de New York, Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. Her music has also taken first prize in numerous composer competitions, including The American Prize, McCollin International Competition and the Gold Medal in the Gottschalk Centenary Competition. In recent years, her commissions have become required works for international and national performance competitions. Zaimont's oeuvre includes six symphonies, music for wind ensemble, works for solo voice and chorus, a wide variety of solo instrumental and chamber music and two works on Century Lists. As writer and editor, she has published five books, including essays, several articles (including the 2009 Article of the Year in American Music Teacher magazine) and the three volumes of The Musical Woman: An International Perspective.