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 ...
Selected Performances:
· Prairie Home Companion
· NPR’s All Things Considered
· World Cafe, Mountain Stage
· eTown
· MTV News
· MTV’s Week in Rock
· The Entertainers (Toronto)
· Radio Bremen, in Germany.
· Central Park Summerstage (New York)
· BAM Next Wave Festival (Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York)
· CBGB's (New York City)
· WOMAD Festival (Toronto, Canada)
· Big Beat Festival (Vienna, Austria)
· Telluride Festival (Telluride, CO)
· Independence Days (Berlin, Germany)
· Smithsonian Festival of American Folk Life (Washington, DC)
· Lotus World Music and Arts Festival (Bloomington, IN)
· Festival International de Louisiane (Lafeyette, LA)
· Philadelphia Folk Festival
· Festival of American Fiddle Tunes (Port Townsend, WA)
· Vancouver Folk Festival
· Winnipeg Folk Festival
· Clearwater Festival (Croton, New York)
· Floydfest (Floyd, VA)
· Falcon Ridge Folk Festival (Hillsdale, NY)
· Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival (Oak Hill, NY)
· Birmingham City Stages, Rhythm and Roots Festival (Cranston, RI)
· Lake Eden Arts Festival (Black Mountain, NC)
· Tonder Festival (Denmark)
· Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance (Trumansburg, NY)
· RockyGrass (Lyons, CO)
Selected music camps/events where Judy has taught:
· The Swannanoa Gathering
· Festival of American Fiddle Tunes
· Portland Old Time Music Gathering
· Berkeley Old Time Music Convention
· Mars Hill Blue Ridge Old-Time Music Week
· Augusta Heritage Center
· Southern Week at Ashokan Music and Dance
· Alabama Folk School’s Old Time Music & Gee’s Bend Camp
· Fiddle Hell
· Old-Time Rollick at Ashokan
· Florida Fiddlers Convention
· Montana Fiddle Camp
· Lady of the Lake Music and Dance Camp
· Buffalo Gap Dance Weekend