NEW YORK, Aug 3 (Reuters) - The Senate confirmed four district court judicial nominees on Tuesday as the chamber headed into its August recess. On the same day, President Barack Obama announced two new federal judge nominations.

As the Senate approved judges for courts in Illinois, Florida, Texas and Colorado, President Obama nominated Miami district court judge Adalberto Jose Jordan to serve on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and Mirandu Du, a partner in a Reno law firm, to the district court in Nevada.

Much work remains for the Senate when it returns from its recess in September: 20 nominations are still pending before the full Senate, according to Judiciary Committee statistics. Of those 20 candidates, 16 are considered noncontroversial and were approved unanimously by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The Senate has confirmed just 11 nominees since its May recess, according to Senate Judiciary Committee figures. Two of those confirmations were to the Southern District of New York, which has witnessed the most vacancies since the early 1990s. J. Paul Oetken and Paul Engelmayer were both confirmed to that court in July.

In a statement on Tuesday Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy criticized the slow pace of Senate confirmations, saying that the Senate has confirmed 95 appeals and trial court nominees during the Obama presidency to date, versus 143 judges during the comparable period of the presidency of George W. Bush.

"Vacancies are being kept high, consensus nominees are being delayed and it is the American people and the federal courts that are being made to suffer," Leahy said.

There are about 90 vacancies in the federal courts today.

(Reporting by Carlyn Kolker)