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Biography
Edwin Seroussi is the Emanuel Alexandre Professor Emeritus of Musicology and former Director and now Head of the Academic Committee of the Jewish Music Research Centre at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 2008 to 2013 he was the head of the newly-created School of the Arts at Hebrew University. He also occupied several other positions at the Hebrew University, such as Head of the Department of Musicology, board member of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Advanced Humanities, member of the Scholion Academic Committee and member of the Tenure and Professorship Committees in the Humanities and Social Sciences. He is also a Visiting Scholar of Dartmouth College since 2007.
Seroussi was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1952 and immigrated to Israel in 1971. His M.A. cum laude was granted by the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Thesis subject: “‘Old’ and ‘New’ in the Singing of Bakkashot among Moroccan Jews in Israel” (1981). He earned his Ph.D. at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dissertation subject: “Schir Hakawod and the Liturgical Music Reforms in the Sephardi Community in Vienna, ca. 1881-1925” (1988).
Held lectureships at the Department of Musicology of Tel-Aviv University and Levinsky Teachers' College in Tel-Aviv, before his full time appointment at Bar-Ilan University in 1990, where he was head of the Department of Music from 1994 to 1998 before moving to the Hebrew University. He also lectured at the Cantor's Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in Jerusalem and New York. He was visiting professor at SUNY Binghamton (1992/3), UCLA (1999/2000), Universidad de Buenos Aires (2003), Wesleyan University (2007), Dartmouth College (2008, 2014), Institut für Musikwissenschaft in Zürich (2008, 2013), Moscow University (2009), University of California Berkeley (2010), Boston University (2011), Harvard University (2013; Starr Scholar), University of Chicago (2016) and University of Pennsylvania (2019; 2023/4 Fellow, CAJS).
He was President of the Israel Committee of the International Music Council (UNESCO), member of the board of Renanot - Institute of Jewish Music and Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra. Served as advisor to the Israel Music Project and the Center for the Encouragement of Folklore and Cultural Exchange in Israel and was member of the Public Board of the Israel Broadcasting Authority (1995-1999). Between 1994 and 2003 he founded and directed the Mediterranean Musical Dialogue at Mishkenot Sha'ananim (Konrad Adenauer Center).
His publications cover a wide variety of topics, ranging from historical aspects of music of the Jews to present-day Israeli popular music. Among his publications are: Incipitario sefardí: the cancionero judeoespañol en fuentes hebreas (siglos XIV-XIX) (Madrid 2009) that was awarded the prestigious Maurice Toledano Prize, Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue Music in Nineteenth-century Reform Sources from Hamburg: Ancient Tradition in the Dawn of Modernity (Jerusalem 1996), Cancionero sefardí by Alberto Hemsi (Jerusalem 1995), and Mizimrat Qedem: The Life and Music of R. Isaac Algazi from Turkey (Jerusalem 1989) and more than fifty articles on diverse aspects of the Sephardic music traditions from the Ottoman Empire and North Africa. He also researched the popular music of Israel with substantial grants from the Israel National Academy of Sciences. His book Popular Music and National Culture in Israel (written with Motti Regev) was published by the University of California Press in 2004 and is considered the standard text book on this subject. A Hebrew version was published by the Open University of Israel in 2013.
Seroussi contributed many articles for major music encyclopedias such as Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (2020), The Revised New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Diccionario de la música española e hispanoamericana, The Encyclopedia of the Jews in the Lands of Islam, and The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages. He founded and edits Yuval: Music Series of the Jewish Music Research Centre (nine volumes to date) and Contemporary Jewish Music (since 2009).
He edited and/or wrote notes for many CDs published by prestigious labels e.g. The Collection of Abraham Zvi Idelsohn (1911-1913) (Phonogrammarchiv of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2006) and Chants judéo-espagnols de la Mediterraneé orientale (Inedit, Paris 1994), An Early Twentieth-Century Sephardi Troubadour, The Historical Recordings of Haim Effendi from Turkey (with Joel Bresler and Rivka Havassy, 2008) published in the series Anthology of Music Traditions in Israel that he produces.
For his achievements in the field of musicology, music and Sephardic Studies he was awarded the Israel Prize (2018), the Engel Prize (2017), the Toledano Prize (2009) and the Heritage Award by Sephardic House (New York, 1992).
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