Judith Davidoff | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 21 October 1927 Boston, United States |
| Died | 19 December 2021 (aged 94) New York, United States |
| Genres | Early Music |
| Occupation(s) | Musician and teacher |
| Instrument(s) | viols, baroque cello, medieval bowed instruments, Erhu |
| Years active | 1939-2021 |
Judith Davidoff (21 October 1927 – 19 December 2021)[1] was an American viol player, cellist, and performer on the medieval bowed instruments.[2] She was considered the “Grande Dame of the viol”,[3] "a master of the viola da gamba and other stringed instruments" and "a central part of the early-music scene."[4] Her recorded performances reflect her wide range of repertoire and styles, including such works as Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht and 13th-century monody.[5] She is responsible for the catalog of 20th- and 21st-century viol music.[6]
Judith Davidoff began musical studies at age 7 and made her public debut at 12. A native of Boston, she was a graduate of Radcliffe College and the Longy School of Music, where she received a soloist diploma in cello. Long interested in folk music, she studied the Black Sea kemence and the saz in Turkey, and the erhu in Taiwan.[7] In the fifties she took up the viol,[8] which she studied privately with Alison Fowle.
Davidoff participated in a number of ensembles, performing viols, early strings (vielle, rebec, kemence), the baryton, and the baroque, classical and modern cello.
She was a member of American early music ensembles, starting in the fifties with New York Pro Musica,[9] which she joined as a viol and early strings player at the invitation of Noah Greenberg – which caused her to move from Boston to New York City.[8][10]
At the request of the then director of New York Pro Musica, Noah Greenberg, she created a viol consort, which became an independent ensemble in 1972, under the name of New York Consort of Viols, and performed uninterruptedly until 2015, during more than four decades. Under the artistic direction of Davidoff, that ensemble presented concerts both in the United States and abroad, as well as offering workshops and outreach activities.[11] The Consort commissioned new works for viols and produced numerous recordings, in its mission to familiarize audiences with the sound and repertoire of the viol. It also collaborated with early music ensembles such as Pomerium, Zephyrus, the Boston Viol Consort, the Yukimi Kambe Viol Consort, the Waverly Consort, the Ensemble for Early Music and Music For A While and Ensemble PHOENIX, Israel (2013).
She performed also with the Boston Camerata (founding member – viols, early fiddles, baryton, tromba marina),[12] the Waverly Consort (viols, early fiddles, baroque cello),[13][14] Music for a While (viols, early fiddles),[15][16] the Cambridge Consort, and the Agassiz Trio (classical cello).[17]
As a modern cellist, she participated in the Helikon String Quartet (founding member), in the Brandeis University Resident Quartet and the Arioso Trio.
She taught at the New England Conservatory and the Longy School of Music while she was a Boston resident. As a New Yorker, she was a member of the music faculties at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY (viol, Collegium Musicum) and Columbia Teachers College, New York, NY (viol). She taught also at Columbia University, Extension Division, at SUNY Purchase, Purchase, NY (Music History through Performance), at the Queens College School of Education, Queens, NY, and at Soochow University, Taipei, R.O.C.[7]
She was a faculty member of a number of workshops throughout North America, organized by the Viola da Gamba Society of America, the American Recorder Society, and had been the heart of the New York Consort of Viols one-day and weekend workshops and Children's Outreach workshops at the Riccardo O’Gorman Garden and Library, Harlem. She also gave workshops and masterclasses in Australia, Brazil, Israel, Sweden, Taiwan and Turkey.[43]
A number of professional viol players studied with Judith Davidoff, among them Lucy Bardo, Myrna Herzog, Fortunato Arico, Patricia Neely, Robert Eisenstein, Lesley Retzer, Cecilia Aprigliano.
Davidoff contributed two articles for the Journal of the Viola da Gamba Society of America: “Ann Ford: An Eighteenth-century Portrait” (vol. 30, 1993 p. 51) and “The New York Pro Musica and the Soviet Union: Personal Observations of a Viol Player” (vol. 2, 1965 p.30).
Her Ph.D. Dissertation, The Waning and Waxing of the Viol: A Historical Survey and Twentieth-century Catalogue is available online at site of the Viola da Gamba Society of America [44]
