Judith Eissenberg

We are happiest when we are making. As a teacher, a performer, and a human being, I hope to inspire making.

Judith Eissenberg joined the Conservatory in 2001 and is a professor of music.

Founding member and second violinist of the internationally acclaimed Lydian String Quartet, Eissenberg performs the full range of chamber music, from standard and contemporary literature to collaborations across musical traditions. With the quartet, she commissions (as part of a biennial commission competition) and premieres new works, records, and tours in the United States and abroad. In its first decade, the Lydian String Quartet was awarded top prizes in international competitions at Evian (1982), Portsmouth (1985), and Banff (1983), as well as the Naumburg Chamber Music Award (1984). The quartet is recognized for its depth of interpretation, performing with "a precision and involvement marking them as among the world's best quartets" (Chicago Sun-Times).

In the Boston area, Eissenberg has played with the Boston Conservatory Chamber Players, the Boston Chamber Music Society, and Emmanuel Music. She has expertise in period-instrument performance and was a member and soloist of Boston Baroque and the Handel and Haydn Society. Eissenberg is cofounder of Music from Salem (a chamber music festival in upstate New York) and is on the faculty of the Chamber Music Conference at Bennington College. She is a professor of the practice of music at Brandeis University, where she founded and directs MusicUnitesUS, whose mission is to further the understanding and appreciation of diverse cultures through music. At Brandeis, she teaches Introduction to World Music and chamber music. Eissenberg is interested in the intersections of music and social transformation and in environmental concerns. She enjoys collaborations across the arts, including visual arts, dance, and poetry, and is looking for ways to have artistic "conversations" with the sciences.

Most recently, Eissenberg performed and taught at Taipei National University of the Arts, Taiwan as well as in Melbourne, Australia. With the quartet, she looks forward to upcoming concerts in California, Nevada, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania as well as in venues closer to Boston. The Lydian String Quartet has a biennial Commissioning Prize, and recently premiered a new quartet by Saad Haddad, a composer who is interested in exploring disparate qualities inherent in Western art music and Middle Eastern musical traditions. Celebrating their 40th season in 2020, the quartet will premiere the upcoming clarinet commission from Vijay Iyer, for the Lydian String Quartet and clarinetist David Krakauer, and will begin a Beethoven cycle.

Eissenberg earned her B.M. at State University of New York at Purchase and her M.M. at the Yale School of Music. She currently resides in Harvard, Massachusetts.