Judith Shatin Celebrates 30 Years at U.Va.

Sound artist and composer Judith Shatin often looks to the world around her for inspiration. For two pieces premiering this year — " Rotunda," a collaborative film portrait of the Lawn and Rotunda and "Jefferson: In His Own Words," a composition for narrator and orchestra, it was the University of Virginia's founder Thomas Jefferson that sparked her creativity. And Jefferson has already figured in Shatin's music, with her "We Hold These Truths" for chorus, brass quintet and tympani commissioned by U.Va. to celebrate Jefferson's 250th birthday.

For "Rotunda" the inspiration came as she looked out her office window in Old Cabell Hall toward the Lawn and the Rotunda. She was struck by the changing character of the place renowned for its iconic majesty. Shatin's imagined a piece that would combine sound and image.

It took four years to realize the portrait of life at Jefferson's University, but "Rotunda" has an extended premiere in U.Va. Art Museum's special exhibition, "Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village: The Making of an Architectural Masterpiece." It has also been shown at SEAMUS (Society for Electroacoustic Music in the US).

To create the work, she teamed with award-winning experimental filmmaker Robert Arnold, whom she met when both were fellows at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Italy. They hit upon a plan to repurpose a surveillance camera and computer system to capture fixed-point images over a year's time.

Meanwhile, Shatin collected audio interviews with students, architectural historians, professors, Jefferson experts, U.Va. alumni from Charlottesville and President John T. Casteen III. She also captured the daily outdoor sounds of the Lawn, such as people walking and running, the chairs being set up and taken down for graduation, rain and the drone of lawnmowers. She used these recordings as the sound source to create the project's soundscape. The outcome is a blend of narration and music created by digitally processing the collected voices and sounds.

Together, Shatin and Arnold selected from more than 300,000 images and combined their talents to create a work that depicts a single day on the Lawn, unfolding over an entire year, moving from dawn to dusk.

Of the soundscape, Shatin said, "the results range from rich low tones of the opening, to the sounds of the lawnmowers racing up the Lawn, to strong rhythmic sections, as well as fascinating brief excerpts from the interviews.

Of the overall piece, she said, "We were both moved by the experience of creating this piece and captivated by the play of life that animates the Lawn, anchored by the Rotunda. Our decision to design the piece around dual temporal levels created a scaffold on which to build."

For the second composition, Shatin is delving deep into the writings of Jefferson to create "Jefferson: In His Own Words," a piece for narrator and orchestra. Co-commissioned by four orchestras , it will be premiered in the spring, first on March 12 and 13 by the Illinois Symphony and then on April 24 and 25 with the Charlottesville and University Symphony Orchestra. It will be performed by the Richmond and Virginia Symphonies next season.

Shatin began the project by sifting through many of Jefferson's writings. While some are only available at U.Va.'s Special Collections Library and at the Jefferson Library at Monticello, she was happily surprised at how many of Jefferson papers are available online. For the project she collaborated with acclaimed poet Barbara Goldberg in creating the narrative.

"What struck me was the astonishing range of his erudition and how intimate some of the letters are. He was remarkably forward thinking in some areas, and very much of his time in others." Shatin said.

She is also turning to the music of Jefferson's time for inspiration – listening to the music Jefferson lived with as well as the music that was part of the slaves' lives.

Shatin's goal is to create a portrait, not just of a statesman, but "a more nuanced and intimate portrait.

"The first movement focuses on Jefferson's political passions. The second movement, Head and Heart' - is drawn from just two personal letters. The third movement, drawing on both letters and farm books, is about his complicated relationship to slavery. The fourth is about his retirement to Monticello, his founding of the University of Virginia, the meaning of education to him and his hopes for the future," she said.

Shatin said it's happenstance that these two projects came one after the other.

"Both of them have given me a renewed sense of the legacy Jefferson left, and how vivid it remains."

Jefferson wrote in 1820 that his new university would be based on the "unlimited freedom of the human mind." Shatin has embraced that ideal.

During her 30 years at the University, Shatin's curiosity and devotion to her work as a composer and teacher have developed, like her music, in an intertwined fashion.

Shatin founded U.Va.'s Virginia Center for Computer Music in 1987-88, and it continues to grow and flourish, with outstanding colleagues Matthew Burtner, Ted Coffey and Dave Topper who are both educators and technical experts. She served as department chair for two terms, helping forge new directions in music education at U.Va. During her tenure she shepherded the music Ph.D. program, the first in the state, whose graduate alums and current students’ work is being performed all over the world.

The research Shatin has undertaken for the more than 100 acoustic and digital compositions she has created contributes to her work as an educator, as do the masterclasses and residencies she has participated in at numerous institutions. Recent examples include her BMI residency at Vanderbilt University and her service as master composer at the Wellesley Composers Conference, while upcoming events include serving as resident composer at California Summer Music and Wintergreen Performing Arts, both in the summer of 2010. Here at home, her teaching has been recognized with a "Teacher of the Year" award from the Z Society.

"My research and preparation for teaching fuels my music and in turn my composing informs my teaching," Shatin said. "There's a strong feedback between the two."

Just as Shatin has developed a creative and distinct compositional voice, she treasures helping students develop their own.

"Judith has been completely supportive of the kinds of projects I have pursued, from acoustic instrumental music to musical robotics. She has always emphasized the importance of my musical ideas regardless of the medium. It is inspiring to work with such a prolific and talented composer who provides guidance on both the craft and artistry of my music and who continually challenges me to produce the highest quality work," said Steven Kemper, a Ph.D. student in Composition and Computer Technologies.

Prof. Judith Shatin recently returned from Casa Zia Lina in Elba, where she was in residence at the invitation of the Stiftung Dr. Robert und Lina Thyll-Dürr. Recent performances include Penelope’s Song, performed by Alfonso Pedilla López at the Museo de la Autonomía de Andalucia in Seville, Spain; Cherry Blossom and a Wrapped Thing; After Hokusai, at the ICMC Festival in Montreal and the Third Practice Festival in Richmond; and Secret Ground (fl, cl, vln, vcl) performed by Third Millennium Ensemble at the Strathmore Mansion in Rockville, MD. Shatin also has a variety of upcoming performances, including View from Mt. Nebo (piano trio) on the Deering Estate Living Artist Series in Miami, where she is composer-in-residence this season.

Listed below are two opportunities to hear the works by Judith Shatin in Charlottesville in the spring of 2010 To see a full listing, please visit www.judithshatin.com

 

The Charlottesville & University Symphony Orchestra will premiere Shatin's Jefferson, In His Own Words on Saturday, April 24 at 8pm in Old Cabell Hall and on Sunday, April 25 at 3:30 at Monticello High School. For tickets please visit www.artsboxoffice.virginia.edu

 

And save the date of Saturday, May 8, 8:00 p.m., for a concert of Shatin's music by the Borup Ernst Duo (borupernstduo.com) at the Paramount Theatre in downtown Charlottesville. A benefit for the Piedmont Council for the Arts, and a celebration of Tower of the Eight Winds, a new CD of Shatin's violin/piano music recorded by the duo, the concert features Hasse Borup and Mary Kathleen Ernst, both outstanding performers and well known to Charlottesville audiences.