Iosif Dubovsky was a Soviet music theorist and teacher. He was born in Lodz on August 1, 1892.
In 1912–1913, he studied at the local music school and then at the Leipzig Conservatory, taking classes in piano and music theory with Max Reger, Stephan Krehl, and Arnold Schering. He graduated from the theoretical faculty of the Moscow Conservatory in 1922, where his teachers included Georgy Catoire and Reinhold Glière. From 1921 to 1931, he taught theoretical subjects at the Moscow Regional Technical School named for the Rubinstein brothers. He taught at the Moscow Conservatory from 1922 to 1943 and became a professor there in 1940. He also taught at the Central Correspondence Music and Pedagogy Institute and the Higher School for Military Conductors.
From 1953, Dubovsky was a professor in the music theory department at the Kurmangazy Institute of Arts in the Kazakh SSR. He co-authored a harmony textbook and wrote a six-volume study of the melodies of Russian peasant songs. He also published articles and teaching guides on Kazakh folk music, and composed songs, choral works, and instrumental pieces.
His publications included a Practical Course in Harmony, a Methodical Course in Monophonic Solfège, a Textbook of Solfège, and works on modulation, the imitation-based arrangement of Russian folk songs, and the melodies of Kazakh folk songs. He died in Almaty on November 27, 1969.