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Uzef CohnRussian musicologist
Date of Birth: 17.03.1920
Country:  Poland |
Content:
- Early Life and Education
- Musical Studies in Warsaw and Lviv
- Musical Career in the Soviet Union
- Novosibirsk and the Study of Uzbek Folk Music
- Petrozavodsk and the Leningrad Conservatory
- Doctoral Dissertation and Academic Recognition
- Publications and Legacy
Early Life and Education
The Kon Family and GaliciaIosif Kon was born into a Jewish family in Kraków, Poland. His childhood was spent in the Galician town of Dolina (now in Lviv Oblast, Ukraine), in the home of his grandfather. His father, Heyman Kon, hailed from Kraków, while his mother, Regina Gutentag, came from Vienna. Both his parents were graduates of the medical faculty at the University of Vienna.
Musical Studies in Warsaw and Lviv
In 1938-1939, Kon studied musicology at the Institute of Musicology of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Warsaw. He then pursued piano studies at the Lviv Music School (1940).
Musical Career in the Soviet Union
Taшкент and the Soviet Composers' UnionIn 1948, Kon graduated from the history and theory department of the Tashkent Conservatory. He subsequently taught at the conservatory until 1963. He became a member of the Union of Composers of the USSR in 1947.
Novosibirsk and the Study of Uzbek Folk Music
From 1963 to 1969, Kon taught at the Novosibirsk Conservatory. He completed his PhD in art criticism in 1964, with a thesis on the modal structure and harmonization of Uzbek folk music.
Petrozavodsk and the Leningrad Conservatory
From 1970 to 1991, Kon taught at the theory of music and composition department of the Leningrad Conservatory's Petrozavodsk branch (later known as the A. K. Glazunov Petrozavodsk State Conservatory). He served as head of the department.
Doctoral Dissertation and Academic Recognition
In 1987, Kon defended his doctoral dissertation on the common foundations of the language of 20th-century tonal music. For this work, he was awarded the B. V. Asafyev Prize in 1990.
Publications and Legacy
Writings on Uzbek Music and 20th-Century HarmonyKon published a book on traditional Uzbek music and numerous articles on 20th-century music, with a focus on harmonic structures in the works of Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, and Iannis Xenakis. Selected articles by Kon were published in the collections "Questions of Analysis of Contemporary Music" (1982) and "Selected Articles on Musical Language" (1994).
