Judith Jackson, piano
Judith Jackson is an experienced pianist, accompanist and vocal coach. Before moving to Door County permanently, she was Principal Pianist of Chicago Opera Theater for more than a decade. During that same period she held the position of National Auditions Pianist with the San Francisco Opera and the MacAllister International Opera Auditions. The Metropolitan Opera engaged her to judge its Regional and District Final Auditions in Denver. Judith has held positions with the Denver and Portland (Maine) Symphony Orchestras and the Peninsula Music Festival Orchestra, where she was a featured performer in the Festival's John Browning Memorial Concert. This past summer, besides being invited to perform as a pianist in the August Festival, PMF selected Judith to select and prepare twenty Door County singers to perform the Beethoven Choral Fantasy with the Apollo Chorus for its August concert schedule.
Judith has appeared as piano soloist with orchestras in Chicago, Rochester and Denver, has accompanied numerous instrumental and vocal solo recitals and participated in a wide range of operatic projects across the country. In Door County she has performed frequently with the Peninsula Music Festival Orchestra and PMF's February Fest, regularly partnered with mezzo-soprano Cynthia Stiehl in a variety of musical venues, played solo and two-piano benefit concerts with her husband Carl and accompanied many visiting singers from the Chicago Lyric Opera in annual Memorial Day Weekend concerts. Judith is the pianist of Shepherd of the Bay Lutheran Church, which is the off-season home of the Peninsula Music Festival's Esther Browning Steinway concert grand piano.