Judith Davidoff


Judith Davidoff is an American viol player, cellist, and performer on the medieval bowed instruments. Her recorded performances reflect her wide range of repertoire and styles, including such works as Schoenberg's Verklaerte Nacht and 13th-century monody. She is responsible for the catalog of 20th- and 21st-century viol music.

Musical education

Judith Davidoff began musical studies at age 7 and made her public debut at 12. A native of Boston, she is 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. In the fifties she took up the viol, which she studied privately with Alison Fowle.

Ensembles

Davidoff participated in a number of ensembles, performing viols, early strings, the baryton, and the baroque, classical and modern cello.
She has been a member of American early music ensembles, starting in the fifties with New York Pro Musica, 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.
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 Ms. Davidoff, that ensemble presented concerts both in the United States and abroad, as well as offering workshops and outreach activities. 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.
She performed also with the Boston Camerata, Music for a While, and the Agassiz Trio.
As a modern cellist, she participated in the Helikon String Quartet, in the Brandeis University Resident Quartet and the Arioso Trio.

Recordings

She taught at the New England Conservatory and the Longy School of Music while she was a Boston resident. As a New Yorker, she has been a member of the music faculties at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY and Columbia Teachers College, New York, NY. She has taught also at Columbia University, Extension Division, at SUNY Purchase, Purchase, NY, at the Queens College School of Education, Queens, NY, and at Soochow University, Taipei, R.O.C.
She been in the faculty in a number of workshops throughout North America, organized by the Viola da Gamba Society of America, the American Recorder Society, and has 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 has also given workshops and masterclasses in Australia, Brazil, Israel, Sweden, Taiwan and Turkey.

Articles and reviews

Ms. Davidoff contributed two articles for the Journal of the Viola da Gamba Society of America: “Ann Ford: An Eighteenth-century Portrait” and “The New York Pro Musica and the Soviet Union: Personal Observations of a Viol Player”.
Her Ph.D. Dissertation, The Waning and Waxing of the Viol: A Historical Survey and Twentieth-century Catalogue is available online at the Viola da Gamba Society of America site.