Judith Blazer Concert
 Judith Blazer and Christopher Stephens Ignite The Goodwin Recital Hall in the Department of Music, College of Liberal Arts. on March 3, 2008 at 7:00 PM.
A Tour de Force. Blend. Broadway, Opera, Prime TV and Soaps.
Judith Blazer began her career as a young singer in Opera, Oratorio and recital in New York City and throughout Italy. She moved into Broadway theatre with leading roles in Me and My Girl, A Change in the Heir, Titanic, and Neil Simon’s 45 Seconds from Broadway. Off-Broadway she was featured in Lincoln Center’s Hello Again (Drama Desk nomination) and Bernarda Alba both by Michael John LaChiusa, New York City Opera's Sweeney Todd, The Roundabout’s Hurrah at Last by Richard Greenberg, City Center Encores! Connecticut Yankee, The Drama Dept’s The Torch Bearers and at Carnegie Hall in Thomashefsky.
Judith has sung at the Metropolitan Opera as a vocal soloist in Twyla Tharpe’s Everlast with American Ballet Theatre and has performed in concert at Lincoln Center singing the music of Ricky Ian Gordon and at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theatre singing the songs of Michael John LaChiusa. She has recorded the music of both these artists and has been a guest on the recordings of Mandy Patinkin and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. She can be heard on over a dozen currently available CD’s.
Ms. Blazer has been seen on television in two episodes of Law and Order (Defense Attorney Simon and as Clara Porazzi, convicted murderer), As the World Turns (Ariel), Guiding Light (Marissa), and as a featured artist on two PBS Specials: Bernstein’s New York and In Performance at the White House.
Regionally she has played the title roles in Funny Girl at Sundance Theatre, The Miracle Worker at George Street Playhouse, My Fair Lady at the Paper Mill Playhouse and the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, Peter Pan at Artpark and The Night Governess at McCarter Theatre. She has also been seen as Maria in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at the Long Wharf Theatre, Lily Garland in On the 20th Century with the American Musical Theatre of San Jose and at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre in Yankee Doodle Dandy.
A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, Ms. Blazer has been on the voice faculty of New York University and as a guest teacher at Wright State University, University of California, Davis and Notre Dame de Namur University in California.
INTERVIEW with Judith Blazer
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Her number-one priority is her instrument. She keeps it “well oiled, tuned up, and ready for performance.” She takes extra precautions, care, time and energy to make certain her instrument doesn’t break, shatter or fall apart. Why? Because unlike a cello, violin, or guitar, if something goes wrong with her instrument, she can’t run to a local repair shop and have it fixed at a moment’s notice. Repairs could take days, weeks or even months to complete. The reason: her instrument is one-of-a-kind. Her instrument is her body.
“No matter how you are feeling, you have to be completely ready to go out and meet your public in top form,” Judith Blazer said. “You can’t go to loud places and risk abusing your instrument voice. You can’t go near lots of germs. The best foot has to be forward. And that’s a hard way to live life, especially when you are under the scrutiny of really tough critics in an industry that can be brutal.”
Judy Blazer is a critically-acclaimed, A-list, New York based performer whose exceptional talent has led her everywhere from Opera houses and Broadway, to television and film. She brings her considerable charisma to Auburn University for a solo performance sponsored by the A.U. Departments of Theatre and Music on Monday, March 3 at 7:00 PM in the Goodwin Recital Hall.
“I am performing constantly,” Blazer said. “I do every kind of venue.”
Blazer’s resumé includes Broadway performances in roles like Sally Smith in Me and My Girl, and Caroline Neville in the original cast of Titanic. From 1982 to ’85 she was a regular actress on the soap opera As the World Turns, and has made guest appearances on the television hit series Law and Order. She played the role of the nurse in the original cast of Michael John LaChiusa’s contemporary musical Hello Again, a role that won her a Drama Desk award for “Best Supporting Actress in a Musical.
“When I finished my first Broadway show (Me and My Girl) I was happy – I think I was relieved that I had gotten through it because I was tap dancing and I had never tap danced before,” Blazer said as she reflected on her extensive resumé. “Sondheim is my favorite writer. His intellect is the most exciting to embody,”
Other favorites include renowned contemporary composers Adam Guettel and Ricky Ian Gordon, both of whom Blazer has worked with.
“I am married to my work,” Blazer said of her dedication to performance. “Every time I go out on the stage I am having an intimate relationship with a mass of bodies that I will never know — that’s how I give of myself, that’s what it means to me. The reward is, I do not have to have an ongoing relationship with all of these people … you just spill your guts and move on. Professionally speaking, Blazer said there was never a distinct, deciding moment where she knew she would be a performer.
“I don’t think there was ever a time that I didn’t know I would perform … this is what I am. Before I could even speak, my mother said I was singing melodies. Kids are like parrots. They mimic what they hear, and singing is what I was exposed to. Our house was 24/7 music. We had chamber music at home, we were always at rehearsals or they (her parents) were teaching a workshop, or we were at The Met (The Metropolitan Opera) seeing a colleague,” Blazer said of her childhood. “There were always interesting people walking in and out of the house. That’s why I started The Artist’s Crossing. My parents were incredibly good teachers and I swore I would never do it (teach) but if you have the best example in your face, no matter how hard you try, you will end up doing the same thing.”
The Artist’s Crossing is a performance school founded by Blazer that not only helps young performers grow in their craft, but also helps them to face life’s challenges.
“As a teacher, I am a little bit like the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe – I’ve got this gaggle of kids who call me for support who have moved to New York City, which is a tough town, and many are very far away from their parents. I am their parent, their anchor,” Blazer said of her role as teacher at The Artist’s Crossing
For Blazer, teaching has become as much a necessity as performance. It is for that reason that Blazer has agreed to share both her talent and her wisdom with the Auburn University community. The March 3rd recital will include melodies that she has performed on Broadway, and Blazer will also spend time with Auburn University Music Theatre students, instructing them in vocal technique and the sort of life-lessons that are crucial for every aspiring performer to learn.
“I am from New York and musical theater lives in New York City,” Blazer said of her knowledge of the performance industry. “I am just happy to be able to go to Auburn and bring some of my credos to the school platter. I am looking forward to hearing everybody sing and seeing the campus.”
Blazer said she is also looking forward to “church food. When it comes to food, I have dealt with and been exposed to the most wonderful ethnic foods all my life. However, the one thing I sorely lack is white people’s church food. All those casseroles…I am like a pig in mud when you give me that kind of stuff. That’s one of my secrets about my affection for the South. I can get me some good grits in Alabama I trust. I also like southern gentility — I find it very refreshing as a New Yorker.”
For more information call 334.844.4154 or visit the A.U. Theatre web site at www.auburnuniversitytheatre.org
Auburn University Department of Theatre, College of Liberal Arts
For more information on The Artist’s Crossing visit http://www.artistscrossing.com
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Last updated February 21, 2008 |
