Judith R. Cohen

Cohen, Judith R.

Judith R. Cohen. Ethnomusicologist, singer, performer on medieval and traditional folk instruments, teacher, b Montreal, 9 Dec 1949, BA (McGill) 1971, BFA (Concordia) 1975, MA (Montreal) 1980, PH D (Montreal) 1989. Cohen has taught at Concordia University 1977-82, for the Toronto Board of Education 1986-90 as an itinerant music instructor, and has given many workshops, seminars, and special courses for children and adults. In 1991 she was a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Toronto studying Judeo-Spanish song, director of the Balkan Vocal Ensemble there, and a teacher at York University. An accomplished performer, she has given solo recitals and lecture demonstrations on Judeo-Spanish, Yiddish, Hispanic, Canadian, French, Balkan, and medieval traditions, singing and playing the vielle, 'ud, derbukka, mountain dulcimer, and various early wind and stringed instruments. She was director 1976-84 of the Montreal medieval performance group Sanz Cuer Ensemble and in 1981 was a founding member of Gerineldo, a Montreal-based Sephardic ensemble specializing in Moroccan Judeo-Spanish song. She has been broadcast in recital and interviews on CBC radio and on Radio Communautaire Juive in Paris (1984). She played the recorder and percussion on Chris Rawlings' album Les flûtes canadiennes (1980, RCI 507). Cohen is a contributor to EMC.

Selected Writings

'The role of women musicians in medieval Spain in the Christian, Jewish and Moslem Communities,' MA thesis, University of Montreal 1980

Manual of Early Music Notation (Montreal 1981)

'Judeo-Spanish traditional songs in Montreal and Toronto,' CFMJ, vol 10, 1982

'La vida institucional sefardita en Canadà,' Sefardica, vol 2/3, Aug 1985

'Modalidades expresivas de los cantos de boda judeo-españoles,' Revista de Dialectología y Tradiciones Populares, vol 41, 1986

'The lighter side of Judeo-Spanish traditional song,' CFMJ, vol 15, 1987

'Ya salió de la mar: Judeo-Spanish wedding songs among Moroccan Jews in Canada,' Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspective, ed E. Koskoff (New York 1987)

'Judeo-Spanish song in the Sephardic communities of Montreal and Toronto,' PH D thesis, University of Montreal 1989

'The impact of mass media and acculturation on Judeo-Spanish song,' World Music, Politics and Social Change, ed S. Frith (New York 1989)

'Musical bridges: the contrafact tradition in Judeo-Spanish song,' Cultural Marginality in the Western Mediterranean, ed F. Gerson and A. Percival (Toronto 1990)