Ralph Kohn

Sir Ralph Kohn (9 December 1927 – 11 November 2016)

He was a fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, and an honorary doctor of Music of the Universities of Manchester and London. He was a trustee of the Wigmore Hall and honorary trustee of the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra. In 2011 he was awarded the Medal of Honour of the City of Leipzig for his contribution to promoting Bach scholarship and performance, and in 2014 the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

He was knighted in the 2010 New Year Honours for services to science, music and charity.

Personal life Kohn married Zahava Kanarek in 1963 in Amsterdam. She was a survivor of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, and, in later years, talked of her family's experiences of the Holocaust to school children around the United Kingdom to promote tolerance and understanding. The couple had three daughters: Hephzibah, Michelle, and Maxine.

Kohn's Jewish heritage was important to him, and until the end of his life he made a point of meeting an eminent London rabbi twice a week to study the Talmud.

In 2004, he was a guest on Sue Lawley's BBC Radio 4 radio programme, Desert Island Discs.

In 2015, Kohn published a memoir, Recital of a Lifetime; the book came with a CD of his favourite recordings.

Kohn died at his home in London on 11 November 2016, aged 88.