Dr. Diana Matut (DE; Yiddish language, voice)
teaches Old Yiddish and Jewish music at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.
Formerly a lecturer in Jewish Studies at Halle University, she is now director of the Old Synagogue – House of Jewish Culture in Essen. Diana was the Joseph Kremen Memorial Fellow in East European Jewish Arts, Music, and Theatre at YIVO (New York). From 2019-2020, she convened the Oxford Seminar in Advanced Jewish Studies and led a research group on Jewish Musical Cultures in Europe 1500-1750.
In 2019, Diana led the Henech Kon project with composer Josh Horowitz, bringing the only surviving pre-war European Yiddish opera back to the stage. She has worked with Yiddish Summer Weimar on projects including the Young Kadyas Choir; a CD of rediscovered Yiddish children’s songs called Far dem nayem dor – For the new generation; and the Glikl oratorye, focusing on the life of the early modern Jewish woman Glikl von Hameln, which Diana wrote with Dr. Alan Bern.
In 2026, she is guest curator of Yiddish Summer Weimar, presenting three projects on the theme of "Yiddish Wo:men." Among the highlights this year is the musical theater piece Togbukh, for which she wrote the libretto and Dr. Alan Bern composed the music. This marks the continuation of the impressive artistic collaboration between Alan Bern and Diana Matut.
>> www.glikl.eu
>> omaworks.eu/triangle-orchestra
>> www.kadya.eu
This year at YSW:
>> Project Presentation Women of the Book and Yiddish Visual Arts
>> Togbukh
>> Lecture: Women of the Yiddish Book
Photo: Moritz Leick, City of Essen
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