Jacob Eder will be the new rector of the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin. The historian will take up the post in the winter semester of 2026/27, the academy announced on Thursday. He succeeds Regula Rapp, who is stepping down after four years in office.

Roni Mann and Jacob Eder

The newly created position of Vice-Rector will be filled by philosopher Roni Mann. Eder and Mann were elected to their positions by the Academy's Academic Senate. They will continue to teach as professors in their respective fields.

The conductor and double bassist Nabil Shehata will be the new dean of the music academy. All three will form the institution's leadership team.

The founder and president of the Academy, Daniel Barenboim, paid tribute to Mann, born in Haifa in 1977, and Eder, born in Bad Aibling in 1979, as outstanding personalities with whom he has enjoyed a close and trusting collaboration for many years. "They will develop the Academy with vision and integrity in the spirit of that humanism which also guided Edward Said and me when we founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra," said the conductor and pianist.

The Barenboim-Said Academy is a unique place for music and learning, one that understands and practices musical education as a humanistic education, Eder and Mann explained. "For years, young people, primarily from the Middle East, but also from many other countries, have come to the Academy with the courage and curiosity to develop themselves musically and, above all, as human beings." This kind of education, which focuses on encounter and exchange, is especially needed today: "listening to others and learning from them, instead of isolating oneself – even and especially when it is difficult," they emphasized.

The academy, opened in 2016, is a study center for musicians from Israel and Arab countries. It is based on the tradition of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, founded in 1999 by the Argentinian-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim and the Palestinian literary scholar Edward Said (1935-2003). In 2017, the academy added a 680-seat concert hall named after the composer and conductor Pierre Boulez.

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