Jennifer Cohen
Lecturer in Music

Profile

Biography

Jennifer Cohen is a Lecturer in Music at the University of York, working across music education and performance. Her work as an educator, researcher and practitioner is connected by a focus on how musical knowledge is developed, embodied and shared, with particular interests in historically informed performance practice, embodied music cognition and inclusive music education.

Jennifer enjoys co-leading the three MA Music Education programmes, whilst lecturing across Music’s BA and MA courses. Her teaching draws on her research as well as her professional practice as a flautist, one-to-one music teacher, workshop facilitator and community music project manager, enabling her to bring a diversity of research- and practice-informed perspectives into her work with students.

As a flautist, Jennifer performs repertoire from all periods as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player, with a specialist focus on the historically informed performance of Baroque music on the modern flute. Her performance provides the foundation for her practice-led research into the embodied processes that underpin interpretative decisions, as explored in her doctoral thesis Playing with Time: The Creative Embodiment of Knowledge in the Performance of Baroque Flute Music. Her research also extends to music education, including her contribution to five chapters in the book Instrumental Music Education, edited by Liz Haddon and published by Bloomsbury in 2025.

Jennifer's external engagement encompasses her work in community music. An advocate for inclusive musicking, she specialises in music and deafness, project-managing the National Centre for Early Music’s ‘I Can Play!’ project (which facilitates music-making opportunities within the Deaf community), co-founding ‘Language and Lullabies’ (an inclusive deaf-aware baby/toddler group bringing together live music and British Sign Language), and working as a specialist practitioner for Music and the Deaf.

Research

Overview

Research interests

• Inclusive music education
• Music and deafness
• Music and the early years
• Embodiment in music education
• Embodiment in music performance
• Historically informed Baroque performance practice
• Expressive timing in performance

Publications

Full publications list

Cohen, J., Owen, C., Smith, E., Liu, X. and Lynch, R. (2025). Embodiment in music learning and teaching. In Haddon, E. (Ed.). Instrumental Music Education: Developing Pedagogies as Instrumental Teachers. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 163-174.

Cortesi, M., Ansari, N., Lynch, R., Powell, R. and Cohen, J. (2025). Considering the effects of the instrumental/vocal music teachers’ personality and persona on the student-teacher relationship. In Haddon, E. (Ed.). Instrumental Music Education: Developing Pedagogies as Instrumental Teachers. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 25-36.

Kirk, K., Powell, B., Lynch, R., Cohen, J. and Dale, P. (2025). Specific learning needs: An exploration of inclusive and accessible approaches. In Haddon, E. (Ed.). Instrumental Music Education:
Developing Pedagogies as Instrumental Teachers. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 191-204.

Lynch, R., Cortesi, M., Cohen, J. and Norouzi Iranzad, S. (2025). Hurdles not brick walls: Supporting students to overcome physical and mental barriers to instrumental practice. In Haddon, E. (Ed.). Instrumental Music Education: Developing Pedagogies as Instrumental Teachers. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 175-187.

Talbot, P., Smith, E., Lynch, R., Powell, B. and Cohen, J. (2025). Resilience, autonomy and well-being in instrumental teaching and learning. In Haddon, E. (Ed.). Instrumental Music Education:
Developing Pedagogies as Instrumental Teachers. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 255-267.

PhD Thesis

Cohen, J. (2018). Playing with Time: The Creative Embodiment of Knowledge in the Performance of Baroque Flute Music. University of York. PhD.

Teaching

Undergraduate

Module Leader:

• An Introduction to Baroque Music
• Historically Informed Baroque Performance
• Rhetoric, Affect and Passion: Performing Emotion 1700-1840
• Performing in Time; Timing in Performance

Teaching Contributions:

• The Community Music Practitioner
• Playing with the Past
• Listen to This!
• Solo Project
• Final Recital

BA Supervision

Postgraduate

Programme Leader

• MA Music Education with Performance (Programme Leader)
• MA Music Education: Instrumental and Vocal Teaching (Co-Programme Leader)
• MA Music Education: Group Teaching and Leadership (Co-Programme Leader)

Module Leader:

• One-to-One Teaching: Intermediate-Advanced
• Music Across the Lifespan 2: Music in the School Years and Beyond
• Final Recital and Pedagogical Essay

Teaching Contributions

• One-to-One Teaching: Beginner-Intermediate (MA Music Education: IVT)
• Effective Pedagogy (MA Music Education: IVT)
• Music Across the Lifespan 1: Early Childhood and Special Education (MA Music Education: GTL)
• Specialisms and Context (MA Community Music)
• Case Studies in Western Art Music (MA Musicology)
• Capstone Project Modules (MA Music Education)
• Recital 1 (MA Music Performance)
• Recital 2 (MA Music Performance)
• Final Recital (MA Music Performance)

MA and PhD supervision

PhD Thesis advisory panel member

PhD internal examiner