Bloch, Ernest

(born July 24, 1880, Geneva, Switz.—died July 15, 1959, Portland, Ore., U.S.) Swiss-born U.S. composer. He conducted and lectured at the Geneva Conservatory before moving in 1916 to the U.S., where he served as director of the San Francisco Conservatory (1925–30) and taught at the University of California, Berkeley (1942–52). He worked in tonal, atonal, and serialist idioms (see also tonality; atonality; serialism); his works, many of them inspired by Jewish themes, include the opera (1910), for cello and orchestra (1916), the large choral works (1926) and (1933), and a violin concerto (1938).

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