Judith Cohen is a Canadian singer and ethnomusicologist, with a doctorate in Sephardic music. She teaches at York University in Toronto. Besides Sephardic songs, Judith sings in Yiddish, Hebrew, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Slavic languages. Judith’s performance repertoire and lectures draw on her village field work in several Mediterranean countries and in urban immigrant communities; and on her academic research, presented in a dynamic, accessible style adaptable to audiences from sophisticated cognoscenti to school children.

Her commentaries can be given in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese.  She accompanies her traditional-style singing on bowed vielle, ‘ud, dulcimer and traditional percussion instruments, and is an accomplished player of  recorders and pipe-and-tabor. Her grandmother’s family was from Riga, and emigrated to Canada in the early twentieth century. Ilja Shneiveis, a musician from Riga, was leading and playing in the concert as well.