Composer · Pianist · Film Music Composer

Music that
moves between
worlds.

Orchestral, chamber, vocal and screen music shaped by colour, rhythm and a strong dramatic instinct.

About

Judit Varga

Vienna-based composer with an international concert and film music practice, whose work spans orchestral, chamber, solo and vocal compositions, with performances in international concert halls and festivals.

Her music moves naturally between classical tradition, experimental currents and the dramatic worlds of film and stage. Recurring loops, kinetic energy and shifting perspectives shape a language that feels at once familiar, playful and unmistakably contemporary.

Based inVienna
FieldsComposition · Film music · Piano · Teaching

Music

Loops, kinetic energy and shifting perspectives animate music that moves freely between classical tradition and experiment—from a single instrument to the full force of the orchestra.

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FILM+ Stage

Film scores, television, documentary, experimental moving image and works for the stage.

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UPCOMING

Selected upcoming performances. My scores are available through publishers, and concerts are often organised independently, so I may not hear about every performance. If you know of one that is missing, please email [email protected]; I will gladly add it.

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NEWS
& MEDIA

Premieres, releases, awards, research projects and selected glimpses into current work.

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CONTACT

Concert & interview inquiries

mail(at)juditvarga.com

LOCATION

Vienna-based, with concerts worldwide. See where Judit is next in the UPCOMING section!

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Before Dawn

Year2025
FormatMultimedia concert work for choir, accompaniment and optional light
Runtimeca. 5–7' (flexible)
Instrumentation / setup
Original scoring: male choir (TTBB), organ and optional light.

Also performable by mixed choir or women’s choir, unaccompanied or with any instrument or combination of instruments. Larger, homogeneous ensembles — such as a string quartet, string orchestra, trombone octet or brass quintet — are especially well suited.

Score / materials

About the work

Before Dawn transforms the first three stanzas of Hermann von Gilm’s poem “Die Nacht” into a spatial soundscape. Written for male choir, organ and optional light, it combines whispered consonants, overlapping spoken canons, vocal glissandi and microtonal inflections with sustained singing and freely shaped organ textures. Graphic and conventional notation coexist; the tempo is flexible, with a recommended duration of five to seven minutes.

Composer’s note
In Before Dawn, I set the opening stanzas of Hermann von Gilm’s poem: verses that touch on despair, fear and the darkness of night. I deliberately leave out the final stanza, in which hope, affection and a possible resolution appear. The moment of release — of catharsis — is still to come.

In the original “Mehr Licht!” programme, that release arrives at the end of Liszt’s Faust Symphony. Its closing movement brings male choir and organ into the orchestra: the same forces that begin the evening in Before Dawn. Choir and organ thus form a sonic frame — searching and tentative at the beginning, transformed and radiant at the end.

The work is a web of sound rather than a conventional choral setting: a cloud of atmosphere rising from the depths of night. It moves between restless fragmentation and consoling harmony, fleeting structures and dense sonic spaces. Optional light intensifies the interplay between the visible and the hidden, between inner and outer space.

The score places the choir in a semicircle beside and behind the audience. Optional lighting begins in darkness and gradually brightens. The ending evokes wind, insects and birds. In the original concert setting, it leads attacca into Liszt’s Faust Symphony; this transition is specific to that programme. Alternative scorings include mixed or women’s choir, with or without instrumental accompaniment.

Background / credits

CommissionCommissioned by Brucknerhaus Linz.
TextHermann von Gilm zu Rosenegg: “Die Nacht” (first three stanzas, German).
Credits / production
The premiere concert “Mehr Licht!” featured Akiko Nakayama’s Alive Painting alongside music by Judit Varga and Franz Liszt. Nakayama creates live visual compositions from fluid colours and materials; the concert programme places her practice in a dialogue between music and visual art.

Premiere / performances / awards

Premiere / release12 September 2025, 19:30 · Brucknerhaus Linz, Main Hall, Linz, Austria · International Brucknerfest Linz, “Mehr Licht!” · Chorus Viennensis — male choir of former Vienna Boys’ Choir members · Zita Nauratyill, organ · Martin Haselböck, conductor · world premiere.

Sources