Prof. Emeritus Laurence Dreyfus is a world-renowned Jewish musicologist and viol player. He is an Emeritus Professor at Magdalen College, Oxford, and a Fellow of the British Academy.
Prof. Dreyfus is acclaimed as one of the preeminent Bach scholars of our time. His seminal work, Bach and the Patterns of Invention, won the Kerman Prize from the American Musicological Society. He is also the founder and director of the award-winning early music ensemble Phantasm. His ability to balance rigorous structural analysis with historical empathy defines both his musical and political engagement.
Prof. Dreyfus is a resolute supporter of Jewish Voice for Labour and IJV UK. One of his key contributions is challenging the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism. In the joint open letter, he argued that: All of us, however, are deeply disturbed by the rising tide of rhetoric conflating criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza with antisemitism, and by the use of this rhetoric to justify government interference in higher education and repression of student protest—all under the pretext of ‘protecting’ Jewish students and staff.