Jewish Music Institute: the Seminal Arts Organisation on Fourth Floor

Michael McMahon, MA Music 09/12/2024

On the fourth floor of the Phillips building, a small placard announces that we have arrived at the Jewish Music Institute (JMI). It is difficult to overstate the role the JMI has in the world of Jewish music both nationally and internationally. This vibrant hub of support, scholastic community, and culture has had its office at SOAS for 25 years. So why have none of us at SOAS heard of it? 

Dr Ilana Webster-Kogen greets me with a warm smile. She is Joe Loss Reader in Jewish Music at SOAS and the head of the JMI, and agreed to give me some insight for the Spirit into the institute and its activities. She explained: ‘The JMI was founded to be a central institution that would support one aspect of Jewish culture …organise events, music festivals, and educational activities in Jewish music’. 

‘[The JMI] serves as a central hub for university-based education that also has a public-facing component,’ elaborated Webster-Kogen. It provides support and outreach for students researching Jewish music, with two current PhD students and three graduates.

In 1999, the Joe Loss Lectureship was established. For all those who don’t know, Joe Loss was arguably the most important Band Leader of the 20th century, and also one of its most influential Jewish musicians.

‘We attract students to the music programme who wouldn’t have any other place in Europe to study Jewish music in a concentrated way, and certainly not centring on Asia and Africa ’- Webster-Kogen explained. These students also benefit from public programming in venues such as: the Jewish Community Centre, the Barbican, and many national music festivals as well. 

When speaking about Jewish music, it's important we realise that we are not just talking about one genre. It involves a huge collection of repertoires and styles: from European classical, to Algerian popular music, to Turkish music, repertoires in the Balkans, in Iran, and of course Klezmer. 

‘The term is more of a historical reflection,’ Webster-Kogen remarks. ‘The Jews have lived in communities for 2500 years… in that time, wherever they have gone, because they were usually a minority, without citizenship. They had various techniques at their disposal to try to integrate into the population they were living with.’ Music was one of these techniques - it served as a social technology. 

In 2022 ,the JMI received Arts Council England core funding, a big step in the strategic development of the institute. It also marks a directional change since its founding in 1983, from where it initially focused its activity within the Jewish community. Webster-Kogen explains, ‘being a part of the national conversation about cultural programming and outreach and education, and being part of the portfolio of what is British, what British culture is about, is a big part of it.’

‘I think SOAS, which is an institution with strong links to Jewish scholarship, is a SOAS that can go out in the world with a better reputation,’ she reflects. Projects like the JMI make SOAS what it is, a world-leading specialist institution, and they are what people come here for. 

Every year, the JMI hosts a world famous summer school, where students have access to Yiddish classes and Klezmer music. In the coming months, it is hosting sisters Galeet and Danielle Dardashti, who will come to both JW3 and SOAS to deliver workshops about their grandfather Younes’ lost Iranian repertoire.