Professor Alexander Goehr (often known as “Sandy” Goehr) was a preeminent British Jewish avant-garde composer and academic teacher. A long-time Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge, he emerged as a central figure of the post-war “Manchester School” of British composers.
Born in Berlin to a Jewish family just months before Hitler took power, his father Walter Goehr was a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg and a renowned conductor who championed contemporary music.
In the 1950s, alongside composers like Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle, Goehr co-founded the “New Music Manchester Group,” introducing the radical techniques of the Second Viennese School and European avant-garde to post-war Britain. Having studied under Olivier Messiaen in Paris, Goehr served as the Professor of Music at the University of Cambridge from 1975 to 1999, mentoring a generation of brilliant contemporary composers including Thomas Adès and George Benjamin.
As a founding signatory of Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) in 2007, Goehr stood firmly against the weaponization of antisemitism and defended the right of Diaspora Jews to criticize Israeli state actions. His piece To These Dark Steps was directly inspired by his participation in a demonstration in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem, protesting the expulsion of Palestinian residents by Israeli settlers, translating localized trauma into a global creative lament. Stage works like Naboth’s Vineyard (exploring tyranny and dispossession) and Sonata About Jerusalem reflect his lifelong focus on the tragedy of false messianic promises, displacement, and the mechanisms of state oppression.