Judith Aller
An American Violin Virtuoso
Out of the Ashes: A Lost World of Music
Violin with Cymbalum
Impressions by Thomas Mancuso
“The first piece I found overwhelming. I had never heard a cymbalum before, and I was immediately and completely entranced by the combination of violin and cymbalum. This piece felt heart-rending and fulfilling at the same time. It is hard to explain that combination, but the piece felt complete as if it had said everything that could be said. It is stunningly beautiful. Perhaps it is art redeeming life.
The second piece sounded to me like a narrative of mid-life, the carrying on of life through the complexity of many competing obligations and directions of effort. There is some relief at times, some dancing, but much is rounded off or worn from competing duties rubbing against each other under the pressure of time, and yet the pulse of effort and accomplishment continues.
The third piece sounds like a letter to a lost love about what they had together and now is only memory, but it ends with a statement that what they had will not die because it will never be forgotten.”
Great musicians influence other great musicians, in a harmonic chain that links present with past.
Who influenced Judith Aller?
Fritz Kreisler, perhaps: the brilliant violinist whose repertoire contained his convincing pastiches in the styles of ancient masters. Jascha Heifetz, certainly, the modern master who taught Judith during her Los Angeles adolescence, and who brought as much appreciative emotion to an ethnic psalm such as “Deep River” as to a melancholy Tchaikovsky “souvenir.”
And then there was the extraordinary Austro-Hungarian player Oscar Zehngut (also known as Josef Solinsky), born in Galicia: one of the first violinists to record klezmer music. A period photographic portrait shows a man with a bald and noble head, alert ears, an intimate gaze, and perhaps the faint hint of a resigned smile. It’s a visage worthy of becoming the carved scroll at the head of a magical violin. His haunting musical sound and style, though, were preserved only on a few shellac discs from the dawn of the twentieth century.
Yet those discs were enough, many decades later, to help spark a klezmer-music revival, and then the creation of “Out of the Ashes”: Judith Aller’s mesmerizing musical triptych summoning the spirit of a vanished world which now seems somehow brought back to life. The suite was recorded by Judith with a fine cymbalom player – Zehngut used cymbalom on one of his records – “in a tiny room with only one microphone,” she says, “because I wanted [it] to sound ancient. I intended to honor [Oscar Zehngut] as well as Gypsy and Jewish musicians who created this form of expression for the violin.” As Judith and her colleague leaned into that single mike in a small Hollywood space on an evening in 1992, much of the city of Los Angeles was burning, during a prolonged period of civil disturbance fueled by racial strife.
The first in a group of three pieces is by the Jewish composer Lazar Saminsky (1882-1959), as arranged and interpreted by Judith Aller. It is mournful, thoughtful, exultant, caressing, and exuberant by turns as sudden as life itself.
“The second piece has no name,” says Judith. “I cannot remember if I improvised it or who wrote it. I stand by it.” It is slow, insistent, rhythmic – evocative of dancers moving in a stately circle. One might imagine the mazurka, even the minuet, might have begun in the light of a Romany campfire. You can almost smell the smoke above the glowing twigs.
“The last piece,” Judith continues, “is a combination of a Yiddish song and the Russian drinking song ‘Kalinka.’” The first strain was written by Judith “when I was 12 or 13 years old; and [I] played it on the stage of Bancroft Junior High, where I was cast as a Gypsy violinist in a short vaudeville-like production.” In 1962, the German-born Jewish composer Franz Waxman, a friend of the Aller family, included “Kalinka” in his Academy Award-nominated score for the movie “Taras Bulba,” based on Gogol’s 19th-century novella about 17th-century Ukrainian Cossacks. Judith recalls: “As a child, I was there when the score was recorded. The excitement of the orchestra performance was almost unbelievable. Throughout the session on the Samuel Goldwyn soundstage, the film played on a giant screen in back of the players while Waxman conducted music that shook the room from the floor to the rafters.”
From Gypsy encampment to crackly 78rpm disc to Hollywood soundstage – and now into “Out of the Ashes”: sixteen minutes of inspired performing and exquisite instrumental interplay. Sensitivity, subtlety, virtuosity, and soul. Music capable of enchanting, inspiring, and comforting you for the rest of your life.
– Tom Nolan
Out of the Ashes, Track 1: 7:29
Out of the Ashes, Track 2: 4:34
Out of the Ashes, Track 3: 3:45
Recorded April 29th, 1992, Sunset Boulevard Studio, Hollywood, CA
Audio Mastering by Jake Larsen.
Cover Art courtesy Joe Garnett, used by permission.
International copyright by Judith Aller, 2026
Archangel! Folies D’ Espagne:
“A BLURB FOR JUDITH (AND IT’S ALL THE TRUTH!)…
… The violin sonatas of Archangelo Corelli are treasures of spontaneous song, dancing, counterpoints, and pyrotechnics far ahead of their time. They constitute a bridge from the Baroque to the dazzling displays of Paganini. I can think of no one better to project their delights than Judith Aller. With the requisite virtuosity and the strong support of Merril Nixon at the keyboard, Judith performs these pieces with melodic sweep, elegance, and affection!”
John Strauss, Award-winning Musical Supervisor of the film “Amadeus” and producer of the Sound Track Recording.
Events 2023:
CITY OF WEST HOLLYWOOD DAY OF COMMEMORATION
Presenting a special day of art, music and documentary film focusing on remembrance and resistance. April 19th is the internationally recognized day of Yom HaShoah when the International Community comes together to recognize and remember victims of the Holocaust with the goal to educate the young generation and prevent future atrocities. JUDITH ALLER will be performing KADDISCH by Maurice Ravel, and STIMMUNGEN by Joseph Achron.
Wednesday, April 19, 2023 beginning at 12:00pm
West Hollywood City Council Chambers 625 N. San Vicente Boulevard, West Hollywood For questions, please reach out to Tatyana Rodzinek at trodzinek@weho.org or (323) 848-6826
RETURN TO THE GOLDEN AGE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC with JUDITH ALLER
The featured work: J.S. Bach Chaconne for solo violin.
Presenting J.S. Bach’s monumental Chaconne in d minor performed by violinist JUDITH ALLER
- Saturday, April 22nd 2023 at 1:00 pm.
- Canoga Park Library
- 20939 Sherman Way, Canoga Park 91303
- Contact: (818) 887-0320
Download the event flyer
Artwork by Joe Garnett
RETURN TO THE GOLDEN AGE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC with JUDITH ALLER
The featured work: J.S. Bach Chaconne for solo violin.
Presenting J.S. Bach’s monumental Chaconne in d minor performed by violinist JUDITH ALLER
- Saturday, January 21, 2023 at 2:00 PM
- Sherman Oaks Martin Pollard Branch Library
- 14245 Moorpark St. Los Angeles 91423
- Contact: (818) 205-9716
Artwork by Joe Garnett
Events 2022:
Dieter Wienholt
SEPTEMBER 11TH…A SPECIAL MUSICAL COMMEMORATION
Loss: Struggle, Resilience…
Presenting J.S. Bach’s monumental Chaconne in d minor performed by violinist JUDITH ALLER
- Sunday, September 11 at 2:00 pm
- Central Library, Mark Taper Auditorium
- 630 W. 5th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90071
- Contact: (213) 228-7000
- For ADA accommodations, call (213) 228-7430 at least 72 hours prior to the event
- Click here for printable event flyer
- Click here for details about Chaconne in D minor for Solo Violin
- Click here for more event information
JUDITH ALLER
What will the future of classical music be?
Will all the music of Centuries so far away in human history be or remain of the same importance and inspiration as they were to composers and audiences of the past?
These questions and more will be presented with music for violin solo by J.S. Bach in a performance by Judith Aller.
Judith Aller, Soloist
- Saturday, June 18th at 2:30 pm
- Chatsworth Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library
- 21052 Devonshire Street in Chatsworth
- Contact: (818) 341-4276
- For ADA accommodations, call 213-228-4730 at least 72 hours prior to event
- Click here for more information
Events 2021:
JUDITH ALLER
The Human Spirit in Music
With storytelling-sketches and music, violinist Judith Aller presents “The Human Spirit in Music,” a program featuring the how and why of great music.
Judith Aller, Soloist
- Sunday, November 14 at 2:00 pm
- Los Angeles Central Library Meeting Room A
- 630 West 5th Street, Downtown Los Angeles
- contact: (213) 228-7225
- Click here for more information
More About Judith:
Judith Aller comes from a musical family that goes back many generations in Europe. her teachers were Jascha Heifetz and her father, piano virtuoso Victor Aller. She lived in Finland, Sweden and France, toured as soloist and recorded with the Finnish Radio Symphony and taught at Sibelius Academy.
Critically acclaimed for her recording of the Corelli “La Folia Variations,” she has received recognition in Europe and in America as a virtuoso violinist and has an established audience for her work. Ms. Aller is noted for her rare interpretive-vision of the vanishing romantic-expressionist tradition, big tone and the abundance of feeling that can be heard in her performances and recordings.
A resident of Los Angeles, she has also worked with school and library audiences helping adults and children develop an appreciation and love for classical music.
Judith Aller on Pirastro strings: www.pirastro.com/public_pirastro/pages/en/Judith-Aller-00001/
Additional information – Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Aller
