Understanding Music

Jeremy Yudkin was born in England and educated in England and the United States. He received his B.A. and M.A. in Classical and Modern Languages from Cambridge University and his Ph.D. in Historical Musicology from Stanford University. He has taught at the Palo Alto Community Adult School, San Francisco State University, the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, Harvard University and, since 1982, at Boston University's School for the Arts and the Tanglewood Music Center. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Boston University's Society of Fellows, the Camargo Foundation, and the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation, he has written articles for the Journal of the American Musicological Society, the Journal of Musicology, the Musical Quarterly, Musica Disciplina, and Music and Letters, and contributed to several volumes of essays. His research specialties include the Middle Ages, early Beethoven, and jazz studies. A noted lecturer, Professor Yudkin has given talks and presented papers across the United States and in Europe and Russia. He is the author of four previous books on various aspects of music and music history, including Music in Medieval Europe (Prentice Hall, 1989).

Dr. Yudkin is also an accomplished clarinetist, photographer, gardener, and soccer player. He and his wife, who is a teacher of French, have two children.