Judith Berkson is a soprano, pianist, accordionist and composer living in Brooklyn, New York. She studied voice at New England Conservatory with Lucy Shelton, theory and composition with Joe Maneri, and piano with Judith Godfrey and Viola Haas.
She has performed with the Delphian Jazz
Orchestra, Steve
Coleman and the Five Elements, Wet Ink New Music Collective, The Four Bags, ASM New Music Ensemble and Theodore Bikel. She has played and collaborated at the BrucknerTage in Austria, the American Festival of Microtonal Music, and the Schumann Festival in Germany. She has premiered works by Gerard Pape, Ken Thomson, Joe Maneri, Matthew Welch, Ohad Talmor, Steve Coleman, Hans Breder, Carlos Cuellar, and Julia Werntz.
Her solo work can be heard on Lu-Lu (Peacock Recordings) a recording of originals, standards, and Schubert lieder. "A quiet but intense record made with commitment and heart...she’s creating an atmosphere, one long reverie, and she stamps her own disposition on the broad range of songs she chooses to cover" (New York Times). She continues to perform new chamber music with ensembles in New York and abroad, as well as lieder by Schoenberg, Webern, Mahler, and Brahms with chamber group The Four Bags and with pianist Emily Manzo. She is founder of The Other Half Festival which features female new music composers.
In addition, she composes for her experimental band Platz Machen, using words from Hebrew liturgy and combining them with hardcore, metal and punk. She is also a Cantor at Congregation Beth Israel in Andover, Ma and Old Westbury Hebrew Congreagation in Old Westbury, NY.