Silver Moon Bakery, on 105th Street and Broadway, is the silver lining of the Upper West Side/Morningside Heights neighborhood. A small corner shop trimmed in white, with two walls of floor-to-ceiling windows, it is filled with the aroma of yeast rising, perfect dome-shaped loaves of bread, and mouth-watering cheesecakes and desserts, and features a warm and friendly staff led by Juilliard alumna Judith Norell (MS '71, harpsichord).

Judith Norell tending the ovens at Silver Moon Bakery. Photos by Tiffany Kuo

Pianist, harpsichordist, opera conductor and director, entrepreneur, mother—and now a professional baker, Judith Norell makes everything she does look easy. She's not your typical pastry or dessert chef—one who discovers her passion as a teenager, apprentices abroad, and comes back to work for a three-star restaurant before opening a neighborhood bakery. She is a well-rounded woman with an enormous capacity for mastering anything she turns to, from baking to conducting, from translating Italian libretti to speaking Mandarin, and now co-owning Silver Moon Bakery.

A New York City native, Norell learned to bake and sew with her mother when she was 6 years old. She studied piano at the High School of Music and Art and attended various summer festivals, including Marlboro, before going to the Royal College of Music in London, where she made the switch to harpsichord. After returning to New York, Norell began taking lessons in Lakeview, Conn., with Wanda Landowska's assistant, Denise Restout.

She went on to earn her master's degree as a student of Albert Fuller at Juilliard and then began her performing career. She debuted at Weill Recital Hall, signed on with I.C.M., performed with the Baroque Music Masters, and formed a trio with oboist Bert Lucarelli and flutist Renee Siebert. For the Bach bicentennial in 1985, Norell gave 26 concerts featuring all of the composer's keyboard works, sponsored by the Bach Gesellschaft of New York. That same year was also Handel's bicentennial, for which she was asked to coach and conduct Acis and Galatea from the harpsichord. Not long after that, Norell was exploring a new interest: Baroque opera conducting.

The period rooms in the Henry M. Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, constructed during the Gilded Age, inspired Norell to found a Baroque opera festival, Opera Antica. Her goal was to give a yearly series of chamber music concerts, dance recitals, and fully staged operas, in English, all accompanied by Baroque instruments—which she did for five seasons, bringing singers from New York. She translated the libretti herself, including Paisiello's I Filosofi imaginari, which had never before been translated to English. But after Palm Beach constructed a new cultural arts center, Norell had a difficult time locating funding for her smaller arts organization, so she decided it was time to pursue another interest: baking.

One might assume that a well-educated and talented woman with multiple interests should have no problem getting hired as a baker. On the contrary, Norell was criticized for being too educated, not young enough, and female. Undeterred, she attended a six-week course at the French Culinary Institute and baked in Paris for one month, after which she was acknowledged more favorably in New York. She worked at Le Pain Quotidien and Petrossian, but she had a bigger plan in mind: opening her own bakery.

Auspiciously, Norell noticed a rental sign for retail space a block away from her apartment. For 60 years, it had been Lauretta's Lingerie, but on November 8, 2000, it became Silver Moon Bakery. It wasn't easy converting the 565 square feet of space into a bakery. First, Norell and the landlady (who is also a partner) had to rebuild a lot of the space because there were unsafe staircases, broken pipes, and scattered debris. Then she found the perfect oven and designed everything in the bakery—including the large windows outside of which customers have often salivated while walking by. After seasoning the oven, she tried out different flours and baked hundreds of baguettes before opening the store.

Every day since then, hungry bread and pastry lovers from the neighborhood line up for their breakfast croissants, baguettes, sourdough rye, muffins, brioches, macaroons, quiches, fruit tartes, sacher tortes, birthday cakes, and even vegetarian sandwiches and soups. On weekends, the lines can be unbearably long.

With all her baking success, Judith Norell has not forgotten about music. Several times a year, she turns the bakery into a small recital hall (seating about 25), and invites chamber music groups to perform. But mainly, she is a virtuoso baker. Constantly experimenting, she creates new breads every month. For April, she plans to have flower cakes, Columba di Pasqua (bread in the shape of a dove), Greek Easter bread, Russian Easter bread, chocolate mousse eggs, and bunny cookies.

Silver Moon Bakery is, not surprisingly, popular with Juilliard alumni, faculty, and staff members who live in the area; one is likely to spot Jerome Lowenthal, Ursula Oppens, and Joel Sachs. If you haven't been there yet, head uptown and don't miss out!

—Tiffany Kuo