Christoph Wolf

Adams University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University and charter member of the American Bach Society, Christoph Wolff was born and educated in Germany, where he studied organ and historical keyboard instruments, musicology and art history at the Universities of Berlin, Erlangen, and Freiburg. As a musicologist, he taught at Erlangen, Toronto, Princeton, and Columbia Universities before joining the Harvard faculty in 1976 as Professor of Music. At Columbia and Harvard especially, he mentored several generations of PhD students, many of whom have made significant contributions to Bach studies. At Harvard he served as Chair of the Music Department (1980-88, 90-91), Acting Director of the University Library (1991-92), and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1992-2000). During his time at Harvard, he also served as Director of the Bach-Archiv Leipzig and as President of the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales.

Recipient of multiple international prizes and several honorary degrees, Wolff holds an honorary professorship at the University of Freiburg and memberships in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften; he is also an honorary member of the ABS. Wolff has published widely on the history of music from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. His Bach-related books include Bach: Essays on His Life and Music (Cambridge, 1991), The New Bach Reader (New York, 1998), Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician (New York, 2000; updated edition, 2026), The Organs of J. S. Bach: A Handbook (2012; with Markus Zepf) and Bach’s Musical Universe: The Composer and his Work (New York, 2020).