She is a pianist and composer born Judith Ann Lang in Memphis, Tennessee who comes from a family where both her mother and sister are pianists and her mother was also a singer and was president of the New York State Music Teacher’s Association. She married the artist and musician Gary Edward Zaimont in 1967.
She began studying the piano with her sister as a child and started composing when she was 8 years old. She won third prize at the International Piano Teachers Association annual contest and in 1956 went to California to perform a solo on The Lawrence Welk Show. She and her sister, Doris, often performed as the duo The Lang Sisters and they toured the US, making their debut at Carnegie Hall in 1963 and making several appearances on The Mitch Miller Show in the mid-1960s. They released an LP in 1965.
When she was 12 years old she won first prize at the National Federal of Music Clubs which was the same year she became a student at the Juilliard School . In 1966 she earned a diploma at the Long Island Institute to Music, in 1968 a Bachelor’s degree at Queen’s College and ten years later her Master’s degree at Columbia University. After having been awarded a fellowship she studied orchestration with Andre Jolivet in France.
As a composer she has written more than a hundred pieces that have won prizes in national and international competition as well as being performed on many recordings. In 2003 she won an Aaron Copland Award and in 2005 won a Bush Foundation Artist Fellowship. Some of her many works include symphonies, operas, chamber pieces and choral works along with numerous others. Her works have been performed by many national and international orchestras including Baltimore Symphony, Berlin Radio Symphony, Camerata Bern, the New York Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
She has been active in promoting the work of female composers and is the writer of Contemporary Concert Music by Women and has been the head editor of the series of books The Musical Woman: An International Perspective which looks at past overlooked women composers.
An active chamber musician she co-founded the Maricopa Music Circle which has now become a 15-member chamber orchestra.
Recordings he works have been performed on include her own Summer Melodies as well as The American Chamber Ensemble by American Chamber Ensemble, Prestidigations: Contemporary Concert Rags by J.L. Zaimont by the American Ragtime Ensemble, A to Z by the Amernet String Quartet, Radiance by the Choral Music Society of Southern California, reSOUNDings by the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rice by the Florilegium Chamber Choir, The Compositions of Judith Lang Zaimont by The Gregg Smith Singers, Judith Lang Zaimont: Eternal Evolution by the Harlem Quartet, Judith Lang Zaimont: Pure, Cool (Water) – Symphony No. 4; Piano Trio – Russian Summer by the Janacek Phiharmonic Orchestra, Parts to Play by Moonkyung Lee, When Angels Speak by the Manhattan Wind Quartet, Barber, Carter, Griffes, Ives, Zaimont by Drew Petersen and Judith Lang Zaimont: Chroma; Elegy; Stillness by the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra among others.
In the field of musical education she was a faculty member at Adelphi University, the University of Minnesota and the Peabody Conservatory of Music before her retirement after 36 years as a music professor.
Sources:
- https://www.judithzaimont.com/full-bio-final.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20070828010936/http://www.jzaimont.com/
- https://www.amodernreveal.com/judith-lang-zaimont
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Lang_Zaimont
- https://www.navonarecords.com/artists/judith-lanzaimont/
- https://www.milkenarchive.org/artists/view/judith-zaimont
- https://www.judithzaimont.com/current-news.html
- https://www.allmusic.com/artist/judith-lang-zaimont-mn0002182926#credits
- https://www.discogs.com/artist/2926856-Judith-Lang-Zaimont