Gerald Cohen (composer)

Gerald Cohen
Birth name Gerald Cohen
Born 1960
New York, New York
Genres Opera, Choral Music, Orchestra music
Occupation(s) Composer, pianist, cantor
Instruments Piano, Vocals
Years active 1982–present

Gerald Cohen (born 1960 in New York, NY) is an American composer and cantor. He is currently the cantor at Shaarei Tikvah in Scarsdale, New York and is based in Yonkers.[1] Cohen serves on the faculties of Jewish Theological Seminary[2] and Hebrew Union College.[3] Cohen’s compositions are published by Oxford University Press, G. Schirmer/AMP, and Transcontinental Music Publications.[1]

Biography

Cohen earned a B.A. in music from Yale University in 1982.[1] Shortly afterwards, he began working as a cantor while attending Columbia University where he received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree (D.M.A.)[1] in composition, with distinction, in 1993. His principal composition teachers were Jack Beeson, Mario Davidovsky, George Edwards, and Andrew Thomas. Jacob Mendelson was Cohen's primary cantorial studies teacher.[4] Cohen’s music has been commissioned by chamber ensembles including: the Cassatt String Quartet,[5] Verdehr Trio,[6] Franciscan String Quartet,[7] Chesapeake Chamber Music,[8] Grneta Ensemble,[9] Wave Hill Trio,[10] Bronx Arts Ensemble,[11] and Brooklyn Philharmonic Brass Quintet;[12] by choruses including the New York Virtuoso Singers,[13] Canticum Novum Singers,[14] Syracuse Children’s Chorus,[7] St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City,[15] Zamir Chorale of Boston,[16] Usdan Center Chorus,[17] the Cantors Assembly of America,[14] HaZamir: The International Jewish High School Choir,[18] and the Westchester Youth Symphony.[19] Battery Dance Company commissioned his Songs of Tagore[20] which accompanied dance performances on tours throughout India and Eastern Europe.

Cohen's music has been performed by the Borromeo String Quartet,[21] Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra,[22] San Diego Symphony,[13] Westchester Philharmonic,[13] Riverside Symphony,[8] Plymouth Music Series Orchestra, New York Concert Singers, Princeton Pro Musica, and many other ensembles and soloists.[23]

Music and style

Cohen's music reflects his embracing of both Western classical traditions and his Jewish roots. Ken Smith, writing for Gramaphone, says of Cohen's style:

Cohen composes with a strong sense of tradition -- one that embraces Brahms, Bartok and Britten on one hand and his own Jewish heritage on the other. Which side becomes more prominent depends, it seems, on how deeply any particular piece is rooted to text. A cantor himself, Cohen's songs and his Passover Cantata V'higad'ta L'vincha display a linguistic fluidity and a melodic gift that hints at what the Hebrew liturgy might be like today if Britten had changed faiths. Once away from the language, however, the Jewish roots recede into a broader modernist context.

His String Quartet No. 2, likewise, uses traditional structures, namely sonata form in the outer movements encasing a slow and lyrical elegy to his late father. The composer's self-described synthesis of art, religion and family in this piece reveals a very personal modernism that makes for more difficult listening -- imagine Bartok spiked with Hebraic modal and metric shifts -- but offers greater emotional rewards as well.[24]

Cohen cites both his experience as a cantor and the western classical tradition (Beethoven, Mahler, and Copland) as equal influences. In a 2002 interview for New Music Box, he said, "in a way what I'm trying to do is have that all come together, perhaps not completely consciously, but just that those are also different sides of me which I want to project into whatever I'm writing."[4]

Cohen's best known work is a "shimmering setting"[25] of Psalm 43.

He is the composer of three operatic works: the 2013 opera Steal a Pencil for Me, based on a true story of love in a WWII concentration camp, which Lucid culture described as "…mesmerizingly hypnotic, intricately contrapuntal" music, with moments of "…Bernard Herrmann-esque, shivery terror…".[26] His opera Sarah and Hagar (2008), based on the story from the book of Genesis, and Seed (2011), a one-act opera about love and choices for a post-apocalyptic couple, have been performed in concert form.

Recordings

Title Year Label Catalog No. Notes
Sea of Reeds: Chamber Music of Gerald Cohen 2014 Parma Contains Variously Blue, Sea of Reeds, Yedid Nefesh, and Grneta Variations
Gerald Cohen: Generations 2007 New World Records NWCR879 Contains Trio for viola, cello and piano; Four Songs on Hebrew Texts;
String Quartet No. 2; and V'higad'ta L'vincha (And You Shall Tell Your Child)

List of works

Opera

Instrumental Chamber Music

Orchestral Music (including works with voice)

2000 Arrangement for treble voices and orchestra
2006 Arrangement for voice and string orchestra
2000 Arrangement for voice and orchestra
2002 Arrangement for chorus and orchestra
2006 Arrangement for voice and string orchestra

Choral Music

1999 Arrangement for SATB chorus, clarinet, cello and piano
2000 Arrangement for treble voices (2 part) and orchestra
2013 Version for SSA chorus and piano
2002 Version for SATB chorus and orchestra
1992 Version for unison chorus and piano

'Solo Vocal Music

Works for Synagogue

LIFE CYCLE
  • 1983 Libavtini Achoti Chala, for solo voice, SATB chorus and piano
  • 1992 Adonai Ro’i Lo Echsar (Psalm 23) for solo voice or unison chorus and piano - 3′
2000 Arrangement for voice and orchestra (2000)
  • 1998 Y’varech’cha (Blessing for children), for treble voices (2 part) and piano
2000 Arrangement for treble voices (2 part) and orchestra
2010 Arrangement for solo voice and string quartet
  • 1999 Adonai Ro’i Lo Echsar (Psalm 23) for SATB chorus and piano - 3′
1992 Version for unison chorus and piano
2002 Version for SATB chorus and orchestra
2013 Version for SSA chorus and piano
  • 2004 Kaddish, for voice, clarinet and piano (poem by Marge Piercy) - 5’
COMPLETE SERVICES
  • 2001 Ki Heim Chayeinu (a setting of the weekday evening service, for cantor, chorus, clarinet and piano) - 20’
HOLIDAYS
  • 1996 V’higad’ta L’vincha (And You Shall Tell Your Child),for children’s chorus (SSA), clarinet, cello and piano - 16′
1999 Arrangement for SATB chorus, clarinet, cello and piano
SETTINGS OF HEBREW/LITURGICAL TEXTS:
  • 1987 Lo Lanu (Psalm 115), for SATB chorus and piano - 8’
  • 1996 Hinei Ma Tov/Shaalu Sh’lom Y’rushalayim, for solo voice and SATB chorus - 3’
  • 1999 Come Before God with Joyous Song - 20’
  • 2001 Sim Shalom, for SATB Chorus and piano - 5’
  • 2003 L’chu N’ran’na (Psalm 95), for SATB chorus and organ — 4’
  • 2003 Adon Olam (Eternal Lord), for SATB chorus and organ - 5’
  • 2004 Lakol z’man/To everything a season, for SATB chorus and piano - 5’
  • 2005 Meditation and Celebration, (Psalms 33 and 100), for SATB chorus and piano - 6’
  • 2007 Lakol z’man #2, for soprano + baritone solo, unison chorus and piano - 5’
  • 2008 Yihyu l’ratson (May the words), for solo voice, SATB chorus, viola and piano - 4’

Selected awards and commissions

Awards

Commissioning grants received

Residencies

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Shaarei Tikva–Staff". Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  2. ↑ "The Jewish Theological Seminary - Faculty". Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  3. ↑ "Gerald Cohen - Composer". Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  4. 1 2 Sheridan, Molly (January 1, 2002). "Gerald Cohen on Music, Religion, and the Bridge Between". New Music Box. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  5. ↑ Robinson, George. "The Voices Of Terezin: Gerald Cohen's new composition takes inspiration from the concentration camp's performers". The Jewish Week. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  6. ↑ "Verdehr Trio - Repertoire". http://www.verdehr.com/repertoire.htm. Retrieved 25 June 2014. External link in |website= (help)
  7. 1 2 "Gerald Cohen: Generations". http://www.dramonline.org/albums/gerald-cohen-generations/notes. Retrieved 25 June 2014. External link in |website= (help)
  8. 1 2 "Instrumental Works–Gerald Cohen, composer". Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  9. ↑ "Sea of Reeds". Gerald Cohen, Composer. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  10. ↑ "Wave Hill Trio". New York times. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  11. ↑ Sherman, Robert. "MUSIC; Great Homes Series Offers Premiere". New York Times. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  12. ↑ Sherman, Robert. "MUSIC;Bach, Handel, Beethoven Lead the Holiday Parade". New York Times. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Hershenson, Robert A. "A Piece of a $50,000 Pie". New York Times. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  14. 1 2 "Works for Synagogue". Gerald Cohen - Composer. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  15. ↑ Hershenson, Robert A. "Footlights: New Sacred Music Works". New York Times. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  16. ↑ "Commissioned Work - Zamir Chorale". Zamir Chorale. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  17. ↑ "Choral Summer Room - 2004". Spectrum-Music. Retrieved 25 June 2014.
  18. ↑ "L'Dor VaDor - WORLD PREMIERE - Gerald Cohen - HaZamir Festival 2015". YouTube. YouTube. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  19. 1 2 Roberta, Hershenson. "Council For Arts Makes Awards". New York Times. Retrieved 26 June 2014.
  20. ↑ "Battery Dance Company - Songs of Tagore". Battery Dance Company. Retrieved 26 June 2014.
  21. 1 2 "Borromeo String Quartet Awards". Aaron Copland House. Retrieved 26 June 2014.
  22. ↑ "Gerald Cohen music concerts". Jewish Music Web Center. Retrieved 26 June 2014.
  23. ↑ "Past Composition Grant Recipients". Children's Aid Society. Retrieved 26 June 2014.
  24. ↑ Smith, Ken (2002). "Generations: Music of Gerald Cohen- Composers Recordings CRI 879". Gramophone Magazine (Awards Issue): a9.
  25. ↑ Haines, Eric. "The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Reviews the Pittsburgh Jewish Music Festival". The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
  26. ↑ Young, Alan. "A Holocaust Story with a Happy Ending?". Lucid Culture. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  27. 1 2 3 "Gerald Cohen". Temple Emanu-el. Retrieved 23 November 2015.
  28. ↑ "American Composers Forum "Faith Partners History"" (PDF). Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  29. ↑ "Award Recognition". Cantors Assembly. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  30. ↑ "MacDowell Colony Index of Fellows". MacDowell Colony. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  31. ↑ "Yaddo List of Composers". Yaddo. Retrieved 1 July 2014.
  32. ↑ "Resident Artists - American Lyric Theater". American Lyric Theater. Retrieved 23 November 2015.

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