Judy Hyman
Old Time Fiddle
With roots in classical training, Appalachian fiddle music, and modern rock, Judy's 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 composes music for film, television, and multi-media. She received an Emmy for "Musical Composition/Arrangement: Special Achievement" for her score for the documentary, The Cultivated Life: Thomas Jefferson and Wine. For more information about film scoring projects and to hear audio, please explore the film scores page on this site and also j2filmmusic.com.
Judy has 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/lead singing of Judy's husband, Jeff Claus.
Judy has been featured twice in Fiddler Magazine (for her fiddle playing), and once in Electronic Musician (for her film composing). She was also included as one of 20 master fiddlers in a booklet/cd set celebrating Fiddler Magazine's 20th anniversary. She was commissioned to create a new waltz to celebrate Fiddler Magazine's 25th anniversary in 2019.
Critics have described her work as haunting, gorgeous, sepia-tone, stirring, powerful, impressive, beautiful, rousing, playful ...