Geraldine Auerbach MBE, Hon Fellow SOAS, University of London

Founding Director, Jewish Music Institute

The establishment of the ‘Jewish Music Institute’ in the year 2000 was aptly ‘crowned’ by the award of the MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list to the Director, Geraldine Auerbach. Lady Lipworth, Joint Vice-President of JMI said: ‘This was well-deserved recognition. The Jewish Music Institute, now part of the University of London, is almost entirely due to her vision, hard work and determination. She has worked tirelessly, virtually single-handedly and with very little money, for nearly two decades, to bring Jewish music to the mainstream of British academic and cultural life, and thus making London an international centre for the study and performance of Jewish music.  We are all delighted that all her efforts have been recognised and that she has been honoured by Her Majesty’.

Mrs Auerbach’s work in Jewish music began in 1984 when she was the founder-director of the first London International Jewish Music Festival. A year later, in 1985, a society was formed that grew into the Jewish Music Institute which is now celebrating its Silver Jubilee.

The Festival, first called the Bnai Brith Jewish Music Festival, became a biennial month-long Festival in London’s prime concert halls, presenting music of significance to the Jewish people throughout the ages and across the globe.  There were 10 such Festivals ending with a Millennium Festival in 2000, part of the national Millennium celebrations. Over 80,000 people have attended 675 JMI concerts and recitals. 1000 children have performed songs specially chosen and composed for them in prestigious venues.

Festivals included new commissions and many first performances in the UK as well as the introduction of performing groups from around the world.  Special events have included a world premiere of a Holocaust oratorio in Canterbury Cathedral in 1986, a Rothschild Soiree at one of the family’s stately homes in 1997, a whole weekend commemorating the 800th anniversary of the infamous massacre of Jews in York in 1990 as well as Yehudi Menuhin conducting Ernest Bloch’s Hebrew Sacred Service in St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1995.  Current performance projects include a Jewish Culture Day at the Southbank Centre and groundbreaking concerts in other venues.

She was also invited to present a day of Jewish culture at the Millennium Dome – a very successful day with the biggest attendance of any day at that location.

Mrs Auerbach’s work in Jewish music in the last 25 years has included setting up a Record Label for Jewish music and creating Jewish Music Distribution to take Jewish music to the public and to record shops. She has set up a number of youth and adult performing groups, bands and choirs.

Her inspiration enabled the Joe Loss Lectureship in Jewish Music to be inaugurated first at City University in 1991 and led to the establishment in the year 2000 of the ‘Jewish Music Institute’ and its invitation along with the lectureship, to be based at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 

As Director of this Institute she has developed wide-ranging programmes in education, performance and information and collaborations with other organisations and Institutes across Britain and Europe.  Working closely with the Department of Music at SOAS, JMI has established International Summer Schools and Conferences in Jewish music and inspired a large-scale World Music Summer School at SOAS. She has created klezmer music Festivals in London's Royal Parks and collaborated with numerous arts bodies and embassies. In 2008 SOAS offered her an honorary Fellowship to mark her achievements in bringing Jewish Music to a wider audience.

A Jewish Music Institute library was established in 2003 with scores, printed books and recorded Jewish music from all over the world as well as special collections of British interest.  Today SOAS is becoming recognised as a world centre for Jewish music scholarship, with its second incumbent Abigail Wood as Joe Loss Lecturer in Jewish Music. The JMI library works side by side with the SOAS library. Mildred Loss and Sir Jack and Lady Lyons studentships help scholars from all over the world to study Jewish music for post graduate degrees.

She has been involved with projects to introduce Jewish music to primary and secondary schools, re-creating with Stephen Glass from Canada, the Jewish Schools Choir Festivals and creating Jewish choral resources for children in all schools. She has expanded Jewish music activities to the North West, particularly Liverpool and Manchester. In March 2008 JMI joined with Liverpool University for a wind band/klezmer weekend.  

In 1999 she set up the JMI International Centre for Suppressed Music bringing together those working in the field of the impact of Nazism on the development of music in the 20th century.  The huge impact of the banning exile and murder of Jewish composers and musicians has still to be absorbed. A team of experts in the field are involved with recordings, broadcasts, exhibitions, publications and performances of this music.

With Dr Malcolm Miller, she has set up the JMI Forum for Israeli Music that introduces the music of Classical composers of Israel and makes connections between students and professors of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and British music colleges. on November 30 2008, chamber ensembles from many British music colleges, also the Yehudi Menuhin School orchestra and the Eden Symphony orchestra present a day of British and Israeli music at the South Bank Centre.   

Since 2001 she has convened a Forum of Jewish culture providers, including the Jewish Museum, galleries, film and literary festivals and education and culture organisations such as The Spiro Ark and the London Jewish Cultural Centre. This group, now called JCUK, has been effective in levering a professional survey into funding for Jewish Culture, creating a twice yearly Jewish Culture guide now published by the Greater London Authority, and creating a huge annual, Jewish culture event in Trafalgar Square: 'Simcha on the Square'. in 2006, 7 and 8 and ‘Klezmer in the Park’ in Regent's Park 2009/10. 

Mrs Auerbach matriculated in South Africa at Kimberley Girl’s High School. She majored in Fine Arts at Witwatersrand University for her BA degree, followed by a Secondary Teacher’s Certificate at the University of Cape Town. She came to Britain in1962 after marriage to Ronald Auerbach who became a well known Ear, Nose and Throat Surgeon in London. She taught Art at a secondary school in Harrow for 26 years. They live in Harrow and have three grown up children, all involved in the arts.

Many letters of congratulation were received on receiving the MBE.  Here are a few excerpts:

Dear Geraldine
‘This is a well deserved tribute to your role in raising the profile of Jewish music and culture both in this country and abroad. The success of the Jewish Music Heritage Trust in involving young people and helping to introduce Jewish music and culture to thousands of people is a testament to your expertise, popularity and perhaps most importantly – enthusiasm.  I am delighted that your achievements have been recognised in this way’. Chris Smith, Secretary of State, Dept of Culture Media and Sport.

‘Elaine and I take enormous pride in seeing your outstanding achievements publicly recognised.  You have conferred honour on the Anglo-Jewish community through your many years of dedicated service to Jewish music. We owe you a deep dept of gratitude for all your successful endeavours – you are a wonderful example of a determined activist.’ Chief Rabbi Professor Jonathan Sacks

‘This is a richly deserved distinction and a fitting tribute to all that you have achieved. All members of the Jewish community take pride in your honour and share a sense of reflected glory from your achievement’. Neville Nagler, Director General, Board of Deputies of British Jews

‘Your award is richly deserved – we have all admired the way you have promoted Jewish music in this country and we thank you for all that you have done in this connection’. Rabbi Dr Abraham Levy, the Spanish and Portuguese Jews congregation

May I say how thrilled and delighted we were to hear of your well deserved Birthday Honours Award.  Having worked with you over the years on the Jewish Music Heritage Trust, and having witnessed your dedication, dynamic endurance and incredible ability to inspire others with your own enthusiasm, I can think of no-one who more richly merits being officially recognised for your contribution to our musical heritage. David J Goldberg Senior Rabbi, The Liberal Jewish Synagogue

‘Bravissimo! Fanfares of delight indeed, from all your colleagues and friends.  We are proud of you.  Greville’ (Lord Janner of Braunstone)

‘We are delighted that your vision, your unwavering faith in what you were doing, combined with persistence and sheer determination have resulted in official recognition of your achievements. You have crossed interfaith boundaries and created an academic niche for Jewish music, whilst making a Festival giving hundreds, if not thousands a unique musical experience they may not otherwise have enjoyed’.  Valerie Bello, Vice President, Bnai Brith UK and Chairman RSGB Women

JMI is 21 happy birthday JMI
article by Rachel Lasserson (2005)
(now editor of the Jewish quarterly).

The Jewish Music Institute. Doesn’t the name suggest a quaint, academic, dusty sort of place where bespectacled ethnomusicologists might bump into each other over fraying scores and flaccid sandwiches?

Let me assure you there is nothing fraying or flaccid about the JMI, a protean, throbbing beast of an organisation, which has taken musical London by its throat and shaken it dizzy with Klezmer beats, Yiddish songs, Sephardi melodies, Cantorial spirals.

Concerts, workshops, seminars, jams – of the highest standards of musical excellence – take place in parks, bandstands, synagogues and concert platforms: the broad arm of JMI brings Jewish Music in every form to just about anybody who is interested, and has created over the years a vast and dedicated following who come together annually from all over the UK and abroad to develop their studies and music-making further.

How Geraldine Auerbach achieves this is one of life’s mysteries. She is a force of nature and a tremendous visionary, a magnificent plate-spinner, darting one minute from a new performance of a Holocaust opera at the Wigmore Hall to a Yiddish cabaret at the Yiddish Hoyz. Commissioning works, creating teenage choirs, sponsoring Ukrainian violinists, bringing over portly Canadian Chazanim, her remit and impact go far beyond the modest resources of her organisation’. So writes journalist and musician Rachel Lasserson at this milestone.

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last modified: August 27, 2010