Michael Bar-Shany, a consultant engineer, holds a C.E. degree in Civil Engineering from the Technion in Haifa, a M.Sc in Hydraulic Engineering from the University of Iowa and a M.A. in Music from Bar Ilan University. His previous publication has been “Beethoven in the Eyes of the Harmonican” in the Beethoven Journal. He is presently researching “First Performances of Mozart Operas in the United States and their Reception.”

During his long engineering career he has been in responsible charge of major projects in Israel including the Jordan-Negev project, Yarkon and Ayalon river regulation, as well as large water resources development projects in the Americas, Africa and Asia.

מיכאל בר שני מהנדס יועץ הנו בעל תואר C.E. בהנדסה אזרחית מהטכניון בחיפה, תואר M.Sc. בהנדסה הידראולית מאוניברסיטת איווה בארה"ב ותואר M.A. במוסיקה מאוניברסיטת בר אילן. מאמר קודם שלו “Beethoven in the Eyes of the Harmonican” פורסם ב- Beethoven Journal. הוא עוסק עתה בחקר ההופעות הראשונות של האופרות של מוצרט בארה"ב והתקבלותן.

בחייו המקצועיים כמהנדס היה אחראי על פרויקטים חשובים בישראל כגון פרויקט המפעל הארצי (ירדן-נגב), הסדרת הנחלים אילון וירקון וכמו כן פרויקטים גדולים של פתוח מים באמריקות, אפריקה ואסיה.

MICHAEL BAR-SHANY,  33 Magal St.,  Savyon, 56540, Israel. Phone: 972 3 5341031, Fax: 972 3 5350929 mishula@netvision.net.il

Avior Byron lectures in Bar-Ilan University, Israel . He studied musicology and conducting at Tel-Aviv University , and is about to complete his studies at Royal Holloway, University of London where his doctoral thesis is on 'Schoenberg the Performer'; examining his performance aesthetics as manifested in his writings, in relation to his practice as a conductor. Byron published in Music Theory Online  and other important journals. He specialises in the fields of performance studies, theory and analysis, and twentieth-century music. Lately he became CEO of Byron Seminars LTD.

אביאור ביירון מרצה באוניברסיטת בר-אילן. הוא למד מוזיקולוגיה וניצוח באוניברסיטת תל-אביב, ועומד לסיים את הדוקטורט שלו ברויאל הולווי, אוניברסיטת לונדון. התזה שלו "שנברג המבצע", בוחנת את אסתטיקת הביצוע של שנברג כפי שמופיעה בכתביו, ביחס לפרקטיקה שלו כמנצח. ביירון פרסם בז'ורנל Music Theory Online ובז'ורנלים חשובים אחרים.הוא מתמחה בתחומים: חקר ביצוע מוזיקאלי, תיאוריה וניתוח, ומוזיקה של המאה ה- 20. לאחרונה הוא מונה למנכ"ל חברת ביירון סמינרס, המתמחה בלימוד אנגלית.

Nelly Kravetz is a Lecturer in the Musicology Department of Tel-Aviv  University.
She has published in Three Oranges: The Journal of the Serge Prokofiev Foundation, Muzikal'naya akademiya, and various collections. Her research focuses on Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Skryabin, and the twentieth-century piano concerto repertoire. She is at present working on Prokofiev's late works.

David Kushner
School of Music  Professor - http://www.arts.ufl.edu/bio.asp?PID=61 - dkushner@ufl.edu


Address:
301 AUD P.O. Box 117900, Gainesville, Fl 32611-7900
David Z. Kushner, Professor and Head, Musicology/Music History in the University of Florida School of Music, holds the degrees B.M. (Boston University), M.M. (College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati), and Ph.D. (University of Michigan). He directs graduate seminars in American Music, Nationalism in Music, Music Criticism, 19th-Century Music, 20th-Century Music, Piano Literature, Chamber Music Literature, and Opera History. He also supervises master’s theses and doctoral dissertations, and serves as Director of the Musicology Lecture Series.

Professor Kushner is a recipient of the MTNA’s Master Teacher Certificate in Music History, the State of Florida’s TIP (Teaching Incentive Program) and PEP (Professorial Excellence Program) Awards, the American Biographical Institute’s Most Noted Speaker Award, and the International Biographical Centre’s Award of Excellence. He has published in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The International Dictionary of Opera, The New Grove Dictionary of American Music, The Encyclopedia of American Jewish History, and in such journals as American Music, American Music Teacher, College Music Symposium, Journal of Musicological Research, and Opera Journal. His book Ernest Bloch: A Guide to Research (Garland) has been described as “a reference work that is enjoyable to read” (Notes) and one that “provides well-written, evaluative annotations that easily stimulate a researcher’s interest in examining the sources” (Choice). His recent book The Ernest Bloch Companion (Greenwood) integrates the composer’s life and works, treats the influence of religion on his creative efforts, and encourages a rethinking of his place in the history of twentieth-century music. “Kushner is today’s foremost specialist on Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch (1880-1959)” (Choice). His article, “Religious Ambiguity in the Life and Works of Ernest Bloch,” appears in the 2004 edition of Min-ad, the online journal of the Israel Musicological Society.

Professor Kushner has lectured and performed throughout the United States, and in Canada, Israel, Kenya, Australia, and in eastern and western Europe. In 1998, he was Visiting Professor of Musicology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He lectured at that institution as well as at Tel-Aviv University and the National Library of Israel. He has presented papers before such organizations as the International Musicological Society, ‘’Locating the Victorians” International Conference, International Jewish Music Conference, International Congress on Arts and Communications (Nairobi, Edinburgh, Oxford), Hawaii International Conference on Social Sciences, Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, Nineteenth-Century Studies Association, Society for American Music, and College Music Society (national and international).

Professor Kushner has also been recognized for his “Recitals in the Schools” program, which brings art music to students in the elementary, middle, and high schools. This unique enhancement to music education has received acclaim from students, parents, teachers, administrators, and civic and political leaders.

Taught and did research at Tel-Aviv University (until 1992) and at Edinburgh University (until 2002). Now an Associate Professor at the Music Department in Virginia Tech, teaching Music Theory and individually-designed courses. Her fields of research and specialization include Music signification, Irony and ambiguity in music, Humor in Music, the Music of Dmitrii Shostakovich, Musical Cultural Units, Musical Space as Cultural Unit, Jewish Immigrant Musicians 1910-1950, and the Ethics of Music Aesthetics. Her latest research looks into Existential Irony in Music. In the field of Music Education she develops music theory courses using new teaching  technologies. Her book, Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque in  The Music of Shostakovich (Ashgate, London, 2000) won international  praise. She had also published various articles in Musical Semiotics and book reviews, focused on Shostakovich and Musical Humor.

Naftali Wagner is a senior lecturer in the musicology department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His major research projects are analysis of Western tonal music, based primarily on the theory of Heinrich Schenker; Richard Wagner’s leading motifs and their communicative power; rock music (characterization of the Beatle’s repertoire); music education (developing courseware for teaching harmony, rhythm, ear-training and more); and developing a methodology for analyzing the relations between prosody and music. 

Yael Reshef

ד"ר יעל רשף חוקרת את העברית החדשה ואת לשונות היהודים, והיא מרצה בכירה בחוג ללשון העברית באוניברסיטה העברית בירושלים. מוקד עיסוקה המחקרי הוא תהליכי ההתגבשות של העברית החדשה מראשיתה ועד תחילת העיסוק הבלשני בה במחצית המאה העשרים. מחקריה עסקו בלשון הספרות, בלשון האדמיניסטרטיבית בתל-אביב המנדטורית ובטיבה של העברית המדוברת בעשורים הראשונים לקיומה. מקצת מאמריה מוקדשים לטיב הלשון בזמר העברי, וספרה "הזמר העברי בראשיתו: פרק בתולדות העברית החדשה" יצא לאור בהוצאת מוסד ביאליק.

Bar-Ilan University
Principal Associate Researcher.  Post-doctorate, Kiev Conservatory, 1989.  Ph.D., St. Petersburg Conservatory, 1973. 
Musicologist with special interest in eighteenth-century Russian music; twentieth-century Russian and Jewish music; music and social anthropology. Currently preparing a book entitled "Eighteenth-Century Russian Music: Ambitions, Realities, Protagonists.” 

PRINCIPAL BOOKS include The Russian Choral Concerto of the 18th Century:
Problems of Stylistic Evolution [in Russian] (St. Petersburg, forthcoming); Music and Me [in Russian] (Moscow, 1994, 1998, 2nd edition); The Composer Sergei Slonimsky  [in Russian] (St. Petersburg, 1991); The Composer M.S. Berezovsky [in Russian] (St. Petersburg, 1983); Rachmaninoff Autographs in the Archives of the State Central Glinka Museum of Musical Culture [in Russian] (Moscow, 1980); The Composer D. Bortniansky [in Russian] (St. Petersburg, 1979). 

PRINCIPAL ARTICLES include “Rethinking Eighteenth-Century Russian Music,” Orbis Musicae (forthcoming); “The Legacy of Late Eighteenth-Century Russian Spiritual Music; its Sources and Destiny,” Musikgeschichte zwischen Ost-and Westeuropa: Kirchenmusic-geistliche Music-religiose Musik (forthcoming); “Chant and Polyphony in Russia: Historical Aspects,” Chant and Polyphony lV (Leuven, 2002); “The Italian Diaspora in Eighteenth-Century Russia” (co-auther A. Porfirieva), The Eighteenth-Century Diaspora of Italian Music and Musicians (Cremona, 2001); “When Did Shostakovich Stop Using Jewish Idiom?” Shostakowitch und das juedische musikalische Erbe Shostakowitsch-Studien Band 3 (Berlin, 2001); “Songs of  Russian-Soviet Emigrants and the Marginal Tradition,” Twentieth Century European  Narratives: Tradition and Innovation (Haifa, 2001, CD ROM); “Knight of Russian Music: Defining Russia Musically by Richard Taruskin,” The European Legacy 3 (1999). 

Judith Cohen, judcohen@post.tau.ac.il, Professor at the Department of Musicology, Tel-Aviv University, specializes in Renaissance and early Baroque music, and in the bibliography of Jewish music.

Main publications include a study and edition of the six anonymous L’Homme armé Masses (Naples, Bibl. naz., MS VI E 40) (1968,1981), Madrigals on Petrarch’s texts by Alfonso della Viola (1989), a critical edition of Paolo Quagliati’s Primo libro de’ madrigali a 4, 1608 (1996), and studies on imitation and emulation in music, especially in the works of Salamone Rossi and his contemporaries. A critical edition of Giovanni Ghizzolo’s Madrigale et Arie per sonare e cantare, Vols 1 & 2 (1609, 1610) is in press at A-R Editions.

Ury Eppstein, musicologist and music critic, received his Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University in 1984. He lectured in Tel Aviv University, 1972-77 and in Hebrew University, Jerusalem, from 1972 until today. He translated the Kabuki play “Kanjincho” from Japanese into Hebrew, published in Bamah, 1993; is the author of The Beginnings of Western Music in Meiji Era Japan, 1994; co-author of Kyoto Conference on Japanese Studies, 1996, and published in Studies in Socio-Musical Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, 1998. He is the recipient of the Israel Interfaith Commission Prize, 1980 and Order of the Rising Sun Award, conferred by the Emperor of Japan, 1989, and serves as chairman of the Israel-Japan Friendship Society, Jerusalem.