Lecture
Dr David Conway
Wednesday 7.10.2026
Dr David Conway
Zeroes to Heroes: Jewish Entry to the Music Professions
Wednesday 7.10.2026
How to watch
This lecture starts on 7 October at 5:00pm (UK).
Summary
Until the late 18th century, the notion that Jews were in any way a “musical people” would have appeared laughable. Yet by the 1820s and 30s, concert platforms were dominated by Jewish virtuosi, opera was dominated by the works of Giacomo Meyerbeer and Fromental Halévy, and Felix Mendelssohn was a European musical superstar. This was not a consequence of genetics, but a combination of social, political, and economic factors throughout the period, both in Europe as a whole and amongst Jewish communities, all of which is explored in this wide-ranging lecture.
Dr David Conway
David Conway is an Honorary Research Associate at the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London. He originally graduated in Economics and Psychology at King’s College Cambridge. In 2019-20 he was a Polonsky Visiting Fellow at Oxford University. His book Jewry in Music: Entry to the Profession from the Enlightenment to Richard Wagner was published by Cambridge University Press in 2011; he has contributed chapters to publications by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, the Société française de musicologie and the Europäischen Musik-Akademie, and articles by him have appeared in journals including The Wagner Journal, Hudobný život, Jewish Renaissance, and elsewhere. He is a founder of the international music festival Indian Summer in Levoča (Slovakia) and from 2019-2026 was Chair of the London opera company HGO.