The pianist, now living in Biel, was born and raised in the canton of Zug and began playing the piano at the age of 6. At the age of 16, she studied at the Lucerne Jazz School with O. Truan and R. Domeniconi and at the Swiss Jazz School in Bern with E. Brockhaus. For 6 years she dealt intensively with jazz and improvised music.
She then completed her classical music studies in Lucerne and Neuchâtel with E. Serman and S. Deferne, where she completed her studies in the main subject with the final grade "very good". Further studies in the classical repertoire followed with Professors S. Risler, K.-A. Kolly and T. Schabenberger. She attended master classes in Switzerland, France and Austria.
In 2014 she completed another master's degree with Professors F. Frith and A. Zimmerlin at the University of Music in Basel. During this time, in addition to free improvisation, she also dealt intensively with new music, where she was able to deepen her knowledge with numerous professors.
As a classical pianist and chamber musician, she regularly gives concerts in various formations. As a cross-genre pianist, she engages in projects with classical music and new music as well as improvisation. Year after year, she designs and conceives new concert programs with different casts and bears responsibility for them until they are performed. Her projects have been performed both in Switzerland and abroad. E.g. collaboration with Alexandre Caldara; "Bach, Schumann et l'ombre de Nico" (F/CH 2006/2008) or the performance series with Claudia Bucher (09/10). An important aspect of her work is the interdisciplinary work. Cooperation with composers and artists from the fields of visual art and literature keeps opening up new perspectives, such as in “Schwarzberg”, a musical reading with Arno Camenisch and works commissioned by the Swiss composer Werner Bärtschi (1950).
In 2013 she was engaged by the Kunsthalle Basel for two months for the Swiss premiere of "Songs for a Mad King" by the Afro-American composer Julius Eastman. In the same year she worked with the soprano Daniela Braun for an interactive opera project at the young stage of the Theater Biel-Solothurn.
In 2011 and 2015, Judith Wegmann received the sponsorship award from the Canton of Zug for her free artistic work. She founded the New4Art Ensemble, which was on tour in 2014/15 and for which she received a grant from the city of Biel. In recent years she has received several grants from the city of Biel for her own creations.
In recent years, the pianist has worked intensively artistically on the subject of time - with all the facets that this question contains and has conceived a wide variety of projects that get to the bottom of this subject. She has also studied and performed all of Feldman's late works in recent years. At the end of 2019 she recorded the solo work «Triadic memories», which was released in 2020. In 2021 HatHut also released "For John Cage", this CD she recorded with violinist Andreas Kunz.
«For years I have been dealing with the subject of time from an artistic point of view. With performances of extreme length, I wanted to see what was happening to me, the space and the body.» This resulted in various projects, such as the internationally acclaimed solo album «le souffle du temps», which was released in 2017 on the Hat Hut records label. The Scottish jazz critic Brian Morton wrote about this recording in the last sentence: “Make time to listen to this music, as the musician made time to prepare for it. Don't wedge it into a pile of other CDs clamoring to be heard. Don't immediately applaud it and move on to the next thing. play it again You'll be playing it for years."
Judith Wegmann: “This is about the experience of time, transience, passing away and new creation, all of which are aspects of time. Of course linked to the history of the respective life. » (Interview ZZ 2019). In 2019, the pianist realized "le souffle du temps II - Réflexion", another solo project with seven commissioned works by Swiss composers and a tour that took her across Europe. Which resulted in her second solo recording and was also released by HatHut in 2020.
Since 2015 she has been active in the association "Workshop for Free Improvised Music" in Bern and took over the presidency in 2020.
In 2021 Judith Wegmann won the "Zuger Werkjahr 2021" prize for her artistic work.
