Esti Sheinberg: musicology, history, theory

Esti Sheinberg completed her BA degree summa cum laude in Musicology at Tel-Aviv University in Israel, focused around Music Education, and her PhD in Music at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, focused on Musical Semiotics.

Dr Sheinberg’s teaching experience ranges from middle and high-school levels and courses in general music adult education, to more than twenty years in higher education and university courses on the subjects of Music Education, Music History, Musical Appreciation, Music Theory and The Semiotics of Music.

She taught, designed courses and did research at Tel-Aviv University and The University of Edinburgh until 2002, when she arrived to Blacksburg and started teaching at Virginia Tech.

Her book, Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque in The Music of Shostakovich (Ashgate, London) won international praise. She had also published various articles in Musical Semiotics and book reviews, focused on Shostakovich and Musical Humor.

Dr Sheinberg is an active member of the International Music Signification Project, and presented papers at the Project’s international conferences (ICMS) since 1992.

Her fields of research and specialization include Music signification, Irony and ambiguity in music, Humor in Music, the Music of Dmitrii Shostakovich, Musical acculturation, Musical Cultural Units, Musical Space as Cultural Unit, Jewish Immigrant Musicians 1910-1950, and the Ethics of Music Aesthetics. Her latest research focuses on Existential Irony in Music.

Another important field of interest for her is Music Education at University and she develops music courses using new teaching technologies.