Composer Blogs@Sequenza21.com

Judith Lang Zaimont is an internationally-recognized composer with an impressive catalogue of close to 100 works, many of which are prize-winning compositions. Her many composition awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship (1983-84); Maryland State Arts Council creative fellowship (1986-87); and commission grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (1982) and Minnesota Composers Forum (1993).

Her orchestral music has been repeatedly recognized through prizes and her works are frequently played in the United States (Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center) and abroad; they are published (Galaxy/ ECS, Peters, Broude, Sounds Alive!, Vivace, Walton) and recorded (Arabesque, Leonarda, Northeastern). Her music is the subject of nine doctoral dissertations, and several of her works serve as repertoire for performance competitions. Her biography is found in most standard reference works, and she is the subject both of individual chapters in specialist volumes and major articles in professional journals.

She is also creator and editor-in-chief of the critically acclaimed book series, The Musical Woman: An International Perspective (3 vols., Greenwood Press). For this, she received a research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1989), and the 1993 First Prize in the international musicology awards, the Pauline Alderman Prizes.

Formerly a member of the faculties of Queens College and Baltimore's Peabody Conservatory of Music, where she was named "Teacher of the Year" in 1985, Judith Zaimont is a distinguished teacher, and held the post of Professor of Music and Chair of the Music Department at Adelphi University from 1989-91. Since 1992 Zaimont has been Professor of Composition at the University of Minnesota School of Music where she chairs the Theory/Composition Division.

Visit Judith Lang Zaimont Web Site
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Sounds That Bug Me!

Title gotcha, did it ?

As composers we're sensitive to all sounds, not just notes ... so here are two pronunciation boo-boos that get me every time:

Folks who don't use the (correct) citation form for the article when it precedes a word beginning with a vowel. Correct form is 'thEE' and 'aN' (not "thUH" and "UH") in instances such as "the Internet" , "the article", "an alternative", "an orange", "the awfully good", etc.

Folks who don't pronounce the second consonant in the unit "NT" -- saying "Innernet" for "InTernet"; "counny" for "county", etc.
But on a whimsical note, I relish the alternate pronunciations that often occur when juncture is misapplied.

(This linguistic feature helps us to get the difference between a place to grow plants -- a green-house -- and a lime-colored building -- a green house.) My husband picked up a wonderful instance of this on NPR during the Aldrich Ames brouhaha, where a commentator spent his 5 minutes dissecting " a spice candle" (spy scandal).

On a similar note, I relish the Emperor's personalization of how he speaks of foe Luke -- hissing the enemy's name (Skywalker) as "S-s-s- (h)ky - wahker".