Dr Joseph Toltz

Joseph Toltz is a co-investigator for ‘Performing the Jewish Archive’ and for which he is researching changing aesthetic expressions in the work of two composers forced into exile, Walter Wurzburger (Germany – Singapore – Australia – UK) and Wilhelm Grosz (Austria – UK – USA). He is also looking at the ethnographic work of Zigmunt Schul in pre-WWII Prague, and its relationship to the content of Schul’s Terezín compositions. Joseph will also examine the influence of Jewish refugees in shaping Australian musical life, with a special study into the work of Werner Baer. He is currently completing an article on musical testimony in the work of two academics, David Boder (1946) and David Bloch (1986-2010), and collaborating with a Polish Jewish survivor of the Lodz Ghetto in the creation of a theatrical presentation of musical testimony from the perspective of a child survivor.

Joseph has had a strong collaborative relationship with the Sydney Jewish Museum since 1994, and is currently Research Fellow at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney. For ‘Performing the Jewish Archive’ he is looking forward to working with the Goldner String Quartet, having worked on their own launch, 20 years ago. This is his first active collaboration with the National Library of Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive.

He graduated from the University of Sydney with a B.A. (Hons) and B.Mus. (Hons 1st Class, University Medal). Joseph’s doctorate, “Hidden Testimony: music and memory in Jewish Holocaust Survivors” was completed in 2011 at the University of Sydney.