Judith Lang Zaimont's Impronta Digitale Selected As A Featured Composition
at the 11th Van Cliburn International Competition

American Composer Judith Lang Zaimont's "Impronta Digitale" has been
honored by the 11th Van Cliburn International Competition as one of
four selected competition pieces.  The selection comes as a result of
the American Composers Invitational, an innovative composers competition
run side-by-side with the pianist's competition, culminating a year-long
selection process carried out anonymously.

"Impronta Digitale" is an eight and a half minute perpetuum mobile in
fast, shifting compound meters.  Its single-strand of pitch ranges across
the entire keyboard, changing moods from whirlwind virtuosity to romantic
lyricism, while layering its complex harmonies across time.  The title --
translated into English as "fingerprint" -- refers both to technical
aspects of the music and to the fact that it spotlights certain of Ms.
Zaimont's characteristic or "fingerprint", sound-structures.  In addition
to standing alone as an independent composition, "Impronta Digitale" also
serves as the third movement of her 1999 Sonata for Piano Solo, which was
cited as the most important piano piece of 1999 on Piano & Keyboard
magazine's 20th century timeline.

"Impronta Digitale" ("Fingerprint"), has been selected for performance by
fully one-third of the accepted competition entrants, including competitors
from Russia, China, Japan, Korea, Italy and the United States.  Information
about the American Composers Invitational competition, and the competitors
selection process is included below.

Judith Lang Zaimont, a Tennessee native who grew up in New York, and now
teaches at the University of Minnesota, is an internationally recognized
composer whose music is characterized by its expressive strength, dynamism,
and rhythmic vitality.  Her musical language is coloristic, and she has
contributed to virtually every genre in a style featuring clear pulse,
intricate surfaces and an almost centrifugal shift of tonal pivots.

Among her many composition awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship (1983-84)
and commission grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (1982)
and Minnesota Composers Forum (1993), First Prize - Gold Medal in the
Gottschalk Centenary Composers Competition (1971), First Prize in the
Chamber Orchestra Composition contest to honor the Statue of Liberty
Centennial (1986); and First Prize in the international 1995 McCollin
Competition for Composers (for Symphony No.  1, performed by the
Philadelphia Orchestra in season 1995-96).  She has offered masterclasses
at many institutions, and has also been featured Composer at the 1995
Society of Composers International American meeting; Scholar in Residence
with a consortium of Atlanta-area colleges (1995), and Filene Artist in
Residence at Skidmore College (1997-98).  Her music appears on two Century
lists (Chamber Music America; Piano & Keyboard Magazine), and is the
subject of many articles, book chapters and several dissertations.

Ms. Zaimont's music is widely performed (Connecticut Opera,
Philadelphia Orchestra, Women's Philharmonic, Kremlin Chamber Orchestra,
Czech Radio Symphony) and has been recorded for the Koch International
Classics, Arabesque, Milken Family Foundation, Albany, Jeanne, Leonarda,
Northeastern, and 4Tay labels.  She was awarded the 1995 Recording Award -
First Prize awarded by the International Alliance for Women in Music (for
the Arabesque CD Neon Rhythm).  "All American Appeal", an article about her
piano music, was featured in the November/December 1998 issue of Piano &
Keyboard magazine.  Several other Zaimont compositions have been honored
by selection for competition repertoire lists, including works for the
Carnegie - Rockefeller competition for interpreters of American vocal
music, and the General Motors-Seventeen Magazine competition.

A new Electronic Dialogues interview with Judith Lang Zaimont can be read
at the Internet Classical Music Magazine Sequenza 21 -

   http://www.sequenza21.com/

More information about Ms.  Zaimont is available at her website
Http://www.joblink.org/jzaimont/ and at http://www.jamesarts.com.  She
is represented by Jeffrey James Arts Consulting, who can be contacted
at 516-797-9166 and at [log in to unmask]

Since its inception in 1962, the Van Cliburn International Piano
Competition has commissioned a new work from a distinguished American
composer to be performed by all the semifinalists during each competition.
Composers who have written for the competition include Lee Hoiby, Norman
Dello Joio, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, John
Corigliano, William Schuman, Morton Gould, and William Bolcom.

For the Eleventh Competition, the Van Cliburn Foundation created the
American Composers Invitational.  The idea for this competition began
during a conversation between Van Cliburn Foundation President Richard
Rodzinski and distinguished American composer John Corigliano.  "In
the past, we have always commissioned the most celebrated, well-known
composer," Rodzinski says.  But this time, Rodzinski says, "We thought, why
not take the opportunity to encourage more new American works," he says.
So, he and Corigliano enlisted 25 distinguished musicians to each identify
two composers to write a new work of eight to 12 minutes for piano solo or
to submit a work of that length that had not been recorded or extensively
performed.  The intent was that a few, selected new American solo works
would be provided to all the competitors, with the ultimate programming
choice left up to each individual pianist.

More than 30 scores were submitted in December to a jury made up of
Corigliano and Yale University composition professor Martin Bresnick.
Corigliano and Bresnick selected five compositions, which were sent to all
30 pianists competing in the Cliburn.  Four of the five were selected for
performance by at least one of the competitors.  Throughout the entire
process the names of the composers were not revealed.

In addition to Judith Lang Zaimont the composers honored in the American
Composers Invitational event include Lowell Lieberman, C.  Curtis Smith,
and James Mobberley.

As a culmination of this inaugural edition of the American Composers
Invitational, the new pieces will be programmed during the semi-final
round of the Competition.  The composer whose work is chosen by the
greatest number of the 12 semifinalists will receive a prize of $5,000;
the other composers whose works are performed in the semifinal round
will receive $2,500.

The Van Cliburn Foundation's official press release about the
Invitational can be found at:

   http://www.cliburn.org/competition/prcomposers.html

The 11th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition will be held May 25 -
June 10, 2001 at Bass Performance Hall in downtown Fort Worth, Texas.
For more information about the Competition, visit their website at
http://www.cliburn.org/competition/index.html.

For more information about their schedule of events, please visit
http://www.cliburn.org/competition/schedule.html.

Jeffrey James <[log in to unmask]>