Judith Gordon (born 1963,

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the List of United States ...

) is a concert pianist and educator.

Education

Gordon studied at

Oberlin Conservatory The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is a private music conservatory of Oberlin College, a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio. It was founded in 1865 and is the second oldest conservatory and oldest continually operating conservatory in ...

and at

New England Conservatory The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a Private college, private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. The conservatory is located on Huntington Avenue along Avenue of the Arts (Boston), the Avenue of the Arts near Boston Symphony Ha ...

where she studied with Patricia Zander.

New York debut

Gordon gave her New York recital debut on May 27, 1990 at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

as part of the museum’s Introductions series.

Bernard Holland Bernard Peabody Holland, III (born 1933) is an American music critic. He served on the staff of ''The New York Times'' from 1981 until 2008 and held the post of chief music critic from 1995, contributing 4,575 articles to the newspaper. He then b ...

, reviewing for

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

, wrote, "… Ms. Gordon does not have the dominating technique associated with major virtuosos, but she has character and she thinks." In 1996, Gordon was named the

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...

Musician of the Year. The

Celebrity Series of Boston The Celebrity Series of Boston is a non-profit performing arts presenter established in Boston, Massachusetts by Boston impresario Aaron Richmond in 1938 as Aaron Richmond's Celebrity Series. History Below is a partial list of performers by gen ...

has presented Gordon frequently and she has performed regularly with

Emmanuel Music Emmanuel Music is a Boston-based collective group of singers and instrumentalists founded in 1970 by Craig Smith. It was created specifically to perform the complete cycle of over 200 sacred cantatas of J. S. Bach in the liturgical setting for wh ...

. Her first Celebrity Series performance was part of the BankBoston Emerging Artist Series at New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall in a program which featured the world premiere of composer Martin Brody's eight-minute piece, ''(G) Corona'', which was composed for the recital. With Rob Kapilow she explored music of Beethoven and Debussy in his ''What Makes It Great?'' programs in Boston, Los Angeles, and New York. Gordon has performed as a soloist with the Boston Pops, the

Boston Modern Orchestra Project The Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) is a professional orchestra founded in 1996 by artistic director Gil Rose in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. In its first twelve seasons, the BMOP was able to perform over 80 concerts of conte ...

, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and the MIT Symphony.

Chamber music performance

Gordon has performed with a variety of musicians, including soprano Lisa Saffer, mezzo-soprano Janice Felty, mezzo-soprano

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (March 1, 1954 – July 3, 2006) was an American mezzo-soprano. She was noted for her performances of both Baroque era and contemporary works. Her career path to becoming a singer was unconventional – formerly a pro ...

, tenor William Hite, and baritone James Maddalena; cellists Andrés Díaz, Rhonda Rider, and

Yo-Yo Ma Yo-Yo Ma (born October 7, 1955) is a French-born American Cello, cellist. Born to Chinese people, Chinese parents in Paris, he was regarded as a child prodigy there and began to study the cello with his father at age four. At the age of seven, ...

; violists James Dunham, Cynthia Phelps, Marcus Thompson, and Roger Tapping; violinists Rose Mary Harbison and Andrew Kohji Taylor; and oboist Douglas Boyd. She has also performed with the following ensembles:

Imani Winds Imani Winds is a Grammy Award-winning American wind quintet based in New York City, United States. The group was founded by flutist Valerie Coleman in 1997 and is known for its adventurous and diverse programming, which includes both establishe ...

; the Jacques Thibaud String Trio; the

Arianna String Quartet The Arianna String Quartet is an American string quartet that has been in residence at the University of Missouri–St. Louis since 2000. Formed in 1992, the quartet's current members are John McGrosso, violins; Joanna Mendoza, viola; and Kurt Bal ...

Borromeo String Quartet The Borromeo String Quartet is an American string quartet, in residence at the New England Conservatory since 1992. They have performed throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia, at numerous festivals and in many distinguished chamber m ...

, Lydian String Quartet, and St. Lawrence String Quartet; the Boston Chamber Music Society, Collage New Music, and Santa Fe New Music. In a 1998 profile, Boston Globe classical music critic

Richard Dyer Richard Dyer (born 1945) is an English academic who held a professorship in the Department of Film Studies at King's College London. Specialising in cinema (particularly Italian cinema), queer theory, and the relationship between entertainment ...

quoted Gordon as saying, "Some of the most beautiful colors and textures on the piano emerge when you're not playing alone."

Collaborations with composers

Gordon has worked with or had music written for her by Martin Brody, Peter Child, Alan Fletcher,

John Harbison John Harris Harbison (born December 20, 1938) is an American composer and academic. Life John Harris Harbison was born on December 20, 1938, in Orange, New Jersey, to the historian Elmore Harris Harbison and Janet German Harbison. The Harbisons ...

, David Horne,

Lee Hyla Lee Hyla (August 31, 1952 – June 6, 2014) was an American classical music composer from Niagara Falls, New York. He received the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for ...

Libby Larsen Elizabeth Brown Larsen (born December 24, 1950) is a contemporary American classical composer. Along with composer Stephen Paulus, she is a co-founder of the Minnesota Composers Forum, now the American Composers Forum. A former holder of the Pa ...

, and

Peter Lieberson Peter Goddard Lieberson (25 October 1946 – 23 April 2011, aged 64) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. His song cycles include two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Music: '' Rilke Songs'' and '' Neruda Songs''; the la ...

Teaching

Gordon has taught piano at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

, and served on the jury at the

Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition The Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition is the largest and oldest continuous chamber music competition in the United States. In 1973, Joseph E. Fischoff and fellow members of the South Bend Chamber Music Society established a competition to ...

. She performs and teaches at chamber music festivals including the Cape Cod (Massachusetts)
Charlottesville
(Virginia), Innsbrook (Missouri)
Rockport
(Massachusetts), Portland (Maine), Santa Fe (New Mexico), Spoleto USA (South Carolina), and Token Creek (Wisconsin) Festivals and

Music from Salem Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all human societies. Definitions of musi ...

(New York), where she is a co-artistic director. Gordon is a former Associate Professor of Music at

Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smit ...

Northampton, Massachusetts The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of Northampton (including its outer villages, Florence, Massachusetts, Florence and ...

. Washington, D.C.

References

External links

Hear Judith Gordon live in concert
from WGBH Radio Boston
Judith Gordon's faculty page
at Smith College
Music from Salem
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gordon, Judith 1963 births Living people Musicians from Baltimore New England Conservatory alumni Oberlin Conservatory of Music alumni Smith College faculty 20th-century American pianists 20th-century American women pianists 21st-century American pianists 21st-century American women pianists American women academics