Yehezkel Braun

Yehezkel Braun was born in 1922 in Wrocław

Braun was born in Breslau, Germany, to a father from Eastern European Jewry and a German Catholic mother who converted to Judaism. In 1924 the family moved to the Land of Israel, living in Tel Aviv, Rehovot and Rishon LeZion. As a child he heard his parents' opera records and the singing of Yemenite women, and he later studied violin.

He joined the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement and Kibbutz Mishmar HaEmek, where he led a choir. During World War II he served in the Jewish Brigade and fought in Italy. After returning he studied at the kibbutz movement's teachers' seminary and took harmony and counterpoint lessons with Boskovich.

Braun graduated from the Israel Academy of Music and earned a master's degree in Classical Studies from Tel Aviv University. In 1975 he studied Gregorian chant at the Solesmes monastery in France. His research focused on traditional Jewish melodies and Gregorian chant, and he lectured in England, France, the United States and Germany.

He was a professor at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music of Tel Aviv University and later Professor Emeritus. He received the Israel Prize for music in 2001 and died in 2014.