From Ithaca, NY … land of lakes, gorges, waterfalls, and colleges … Judy composes music for film, television, and multi-media. She has contributed music to more than 30 films, both features and documentary, winning an Emmy for her score for the documentary, The Cultivated Life: Thomas Jefferson and Wine. She was featured in Electronic Musician Magazine for her film work. (For more information about film scoring projects and to hear audio, please explore the film scores page on this site and also j2filmmusic.com.)
Though she grew up steeped in classical music and Motown, and with jazz in the air, Judy found and fell in love with traditional Appalachian fiddle music at the end of college and has been playing it ever since. She has taught at traditional music camps and programs throughout the U.S. over many decades. Featured twice in Fiddler Magazine for her playing, she was also included as one of 20 master fiddlers in a booklet/cd set celebrating Fiddler Magazine's 20th anniversary and later commissioned to create a new waltz to celebrate Fiddler Magazine's 25th anniversary.
Judy was a founding member of the alt-folk rock band, The Horse Flies. With The 'Flies she toured extensively in the U.S., Canada, and Europe and recorded 8 albums, including releases on MCA and Rounder Records.
Judy toured and recorded with the remarkable Natalie Merchant several times and appears on her albums, The House Carpenter's Daughter, Leave Your Sleep, and Retrospective.
A project emotionally special to Judy is Late Last Summer, an album of her original waltzes, which she recorded with her dad, jazz pianist/composer Dick Hyman, in 2012.
She is proud of the two albums that rock band Boy with a Fish has produced, on which she plays electric violin. This project features the song-writing and lead singing of Judy's husband, Jeff Claus.
Critics have described her work as haunting, gorgeous, sepia-tone, stirring, powerful, impressive, beautiful, rousing, playful ...