Timothy Judd

A native of Upstate New York, Timothy Judd has been a member of the Richmond Symphony violin section since 2001. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music where he earned the degrees Bachelor of Music and Master of Music, studying with world renowned Ukrainian-American violinist Oleh Krysa. The son of public school music educators, Timothy Judd began violin lessons at the age of four through Eastman’s Community Education Division. He was a student of Anastasia Jempelis, one of the earliest champions of the Suzuki method in the United States. A passionate teacher, Mr. Judd has maintained a private violin studio in the Richmond area since 2002 and has been active coaching chamber music and numerous youth orchestra sectionals. In his free time, Timothy Judd enjoys working out with Richmond’s popular SEAL Team Physical Training program.

Remembering Rodion Shchedrin

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Rodion Shchedrin, the celebrated Russian composer and pianist, passed away on August 29 in Munich, Germany. He was 92. Reflecting a colorful blend of influences from the archaic to the avant-garde to Russian folklore, Shchedrin’s works include the ballets Carmen Suite (1967) and Anna Karenina (1971), the opera Lolita (1993), three symphonies, and five concertos for orchestra. Shchedrin created many of his ballets for his wife of 57 years, prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya. …

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Michael Torke’s “Last Fall”: New Music for Solo Violin and String Orchestra

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American composer Michael Torke (b. 1961) has just completed a new concerto for solo violin and string orchestra simply titled Last. Last is a collection of twelve meditative pieces that can be performed separately, or as a whole. The titles evoke memories and the passage of time. (Last Fall, Last Year, Last Month, Last Sunday, etc.) Torke comments that they “are almost like second movements of violin concertos.” His program notes for Last are as follows: The Stoics recommend …

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Wagner’s “Faust” Overture: A Tone Poem Inspired by Goethe

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As a teenager, Richard Wagner developed a fascination with Goethe’s Faust.  Allegedly, at the age of 16, Wagner hid a copy of the play among his school books. For the rest of his life, allusions to Faust, and direct quotations, recurred throughout his writings. The Faustian archetype, in which the protagonist, in a deal with the devil, exchanges his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures, inspired music by numerous composers including Liszt, …

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John Cage’s “In a Landscape”: An Homage to Satie

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4’33” remains the most famous work of the American composer and theorist, John Cage (1912-1992). The experimental piece, composed in 1952 for any combination of instruments, requires performers to sit onstage and not play their instruments. The ambient sounds of the room take over and form the freest kind of chance music. Our ears become attuned to an ever-present sonic counterpoint. Total silence is a fallacy. One of Cage’s greatest influences was …

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Stephan Koncz’ “A New Satiesfaction” (Gymnopédie No. 1): A Melancholic Musette After Satie

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With their sense of serene detachment, hypnotic repeating rhythms, and harmonic stasis, Erik Satie’s Trois Gymnopédies opened the door to a dreamy new world, previously unimagined. Composed in 1888, the brief, atmospheric solo piano works anticipated ambient and experimental music of the late 20th century. The composer and theorist, John Cage, declared Satie’s innovations to be “indispensable.” The iconic Gymnopédies have influenced numerous works, from Stephen Sondheim songs such as Barcelona, to Janet Jackson’s 2001 …

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Poulenc’s Sextet: An Homage to Wind Instruments

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The critic Claude Rostand famously observed, “In Poulenc there is something of the monk and something of the rascal.” We hear this in Francis Poulenc’s Sextet for Piano and Winds, composed between 1931 and 1932, and revised in 1939. Scored for piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and French horn, it is music filled with impish humor. At times, its comic voices, with their distinct personas, take on a satirical tone. As the …

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Beethoven’s Violin Concerto: Nathan Milstein, Sir Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic

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Nathan Milstein (1903-1992) was one of the most elegant and innately gifted violinists of the twentieth century. The biographer Boris Schwarz called his playing, “a rare combination of classical taste and technical perfection,” adding that “the effortless nonchalance with which he achieves sophisticated technical feats is amazing.” Born in Odessa, Milstein studied with the renowned Pyotr Stolyarsky, who was also teaching the six-year-old David Oistrakh at the time. At the age of …

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