Judith Cohen










Audio/Video documentation (in German)

Judith Cohen, musicologist, retired as Head of the Department of Musicology at the University of Tel Aviv, retired director of the Music Teachers' Seminar, Tel Aviv and retired Chair of the Israel Society of Musicology.

She studied from 1953 to 1955 at the Midrasha, the music teachers' seminar Kestenberg founded in Tel Aviv, just after he had relinquished his director's post to Dr. Herzl Shmueli in 1952.

Cohen recalls in her contribution, how Kestenberg maintained contact with students even after he no longer directed the seminar. For example, he invited groups of students to his home for musical lectures and discussions about topics such as the literature for piano. Often, Kestenberg played the examples on the piano himself.

Cohen later taught music history at the Midrasha (1967-78), after having studied musicology in Zurich from 1959 to 1963. She was the Midrasha's director from 1987 to 1991.

Fields of research: music of the Renaissance and Early Baroque; bibliography of Jewish music; publications on questions of imitation and intertextuality in music, as well as on the relationships between music and poetry in the Italian madrigal.
1953 Judith Cohen was born in Berlin, Germany.
Since 1947 Emigration. She has lived in Israel since she was fourteen.
1953-55  Studies at the Music Teachers' Seminar in Tel Aviv, which was founded by Leo Kestenberg.
1959-63 Later she studied musicology in Zurich, earning her doctorate with a thesis on the "L´Homme armé" Masses of the 15th century.
Since 1963 She returned to Israel and taught at the Music Academy in Tel Aviv, she conducted research at the Jewish Music Research Centre of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer as well as an Associate Professor at the musicological seminar of the University of Tel Aviv.
1967-78 Taught at the Music Teachers' Seminar in Tel Aviv which she later directed

1977-80

  		Head of the Department of Musicology at the University of Tel Aviv as well as Chair of the Israel Society of Musicology 
1987-91  Director of the Music Teachers' Seminar, Tel Aviv 
1990-1993  Again, Head of the Department of Musicology at the University  
1995-98  Again, Chair of the Israel Society of Musicology 
2004  Retired as professor emeritus.