Judith Berkson - Oylam (ECM 2009) 💫

 

This artist someway reminded me Annette Peacock and Sidsel Endresen, not for her voice but for her brave heart approach and crepuscular, Turner-like atmospheres.

Judith Berkson is a mezzo-soprano, pianist and composer living in Los Angeles, California.

She studied voice with Lucy Shelton and composition with Joe Maneri at the New England Conservatory. She received her MA in composition from Wesleyan University and a Doctorate in performance and composition from California Institute of the Arts.

Judith has collaborated with Kronos Quartet, Wet Ink, Yarn/Wire and City Opera and has presented work at Picasso Museum Malaga, Roulette, Le Poisson Rouge, Joe’s Pub, The Stone, Barbès, Bang On A Can, and the 92 Street Y. She has received a Six Points Fellowship, a Jerome Foundation grant, Meet The Composer grant, New Music USA funding and support from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Her solo album “Oylam” (issued on ECM and masterfully engineered by Stefano Amerio at ArteSuono in Cavalicco, Udine, Italy) was called “Standards and Schubert and liturgical music, swing and chilly silences, a beautiful Satie-like piece to open and close the record” by Ben Ratliff of the New York Times.

She composed music for the film Christopher at Sea (2022), a queer retelling of Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise which premiered at Sundance and the Venice Biennale, and won awards at SXSW and at Outfest LA. Her latest chamber opera Partial Memories premiered at the NODO Festival in Ostrava, Czechia. It was dedicated to forgotten female artists Janet Sobel and Mary Gartside and featured the Ostravská Banda.

Judith is also a cantor and has collaborated on Yiddish and cantorial music with Frank London and Theodore Bikel. As a vocalist she has premiered works by Enno Poppe, Alvin Lucier, Rick Burckhardt and Chaya Czernowin. She has served as DMA Lecturer at California Institute of the Arts and as a guest lecturer at Columbia University and at The New School.

Please read Tyran Grillo’s review here for more insights.

Thanks, Tyran 🖖🙏💫🖖