Joel Cohen
Encyclopedia
Joel Cohen, is an American
musician specializing in early music
repertoires. Joel graduated Classical High school in Providence, R.I. in 1959. He then graduated from Brown University in 1963. He continued graduate education at Harvard University.http://bostoncamerata.com/joelcohen.html From 1968 to 2008 he was the director of the Boston Camerata
, generally considered to be the pre-eminent American early music ensemble. He remains connected to the Boston Camerata as Music Director Emeritus. Cohen founded the Camerata Mediterranea
in 1990 and incorporated it as a nonprofit research institute in France in 2007 . He performs on lute and guitar and sings, but is best known as an organizer and creator of concert programs and sound recordings. In recent years Cohen's research and performance activities have centered on early American repertoires (including Shaker song), as well as southern European repertoires of the Middle Ages. Many of his projects in this latter category involve collaboration with Middle Eastern musicians (see below).
He has collaborated very frequently with French soprano Anne Azéma
, the Artistic Director (since 2008) of the Boston Camerata, and has also worked with numerous choirs, including the Schola Cantorum
and student choruses at Brown, Brandeis, Harvard and other universities. His professional honors include the Signet Society Medal (Harvard University), the Howard Mayer Brown Award, the Erwin Bodky Award, and the Georges Longy Award. He was a government-appointed artist-in-residence in the Netherlands during the year 2000, and is an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic.
Cohen studied composition at Harvard University
. He was awarded a Danforth Fellowship and spent two years in Paris as a student of Nadia Boulanger
. In the 1970s he spent two seasons as a producer of musical radio programs for the French National Radio (France Musique), where he originated the concept of an all-day musical celebration on the days of the solstice, an idea later to be adapted as a national celebration each June 21 in France. This annual event is currently known as the "Fête de la Musique
" also known as "World Music Day".
and The Golden Harvest) commemorate these collaborations, which continued for several seasons from 1992 forward.
In 2004 Cohen and the Finnish choreographer Tero Saarinen created a dance piece, "Borrowed Light", using live Shaker music. This production has toured extensively in France, Germany, England, Sweden, Finland, Italy, and the United States, most recently at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in November, 2007.
As early as 1982, Joel and the Boston Camerata had developed a program called "The Sacred Bridge," exploring Jewish and Christian interactions during the Middle Ages. In 1988 Erato Disques decided to make a recording of this program. Still in demand after more than two decades, the recording has recently been reissued on Warner Classics.
The "Sacred Bridge" program continues to tour internationally, most recently (March 2010) in Montpellier, France. Since its inception it has undergone considerable development, and now includes an important Arabic/Muslim component. Recent performances have been undertaken with the U.S.- based Sharq Arabic Music Ensemble
In 1997 Joel Cohen met the eminent Moroccan musician Mohammed Briouel for the first time. Their encounter gave birth to a major production, a selection of the thirteenth century Cantigas
of King Alfonso el Sabio
with European and Moroccan musicians collaborating together. The recording, made in Fez, Morocco, was signed "Camerata Mediterranea," and included the participation of the Abdelkrim Rais orchestra of Fez, directed by Mr. Briouel.
The Cantigas recording won the coveted Edison Prize in 2000, and has toured extensively in the United States, Morocco, Germany, the Netherlands, and France.
"A Mediterranean Christmas", with the Boston Camerata and the Sharq Ensemble, is Cohen's most recent production exploring shared roots and musical practices. Recorded in 2005 for Warner Classics, and enthusiastically greeted by the musical press, the production has also toured live in the United States and France.
In recent seasons Joel Cohen has also untertaken collaborations with Dünya, a Turkish music ensemble, and its leader, Mehmet Sanlikol. With Camerata Mediterranea, he produced a colloquium in early summer 2009 around the subject of cross-cultural Mediterranean musical interactions, in the French village of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
musician specializing in early music
Early music
Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...
repertoires. Joel graduated Classical High school in Providence, R.I. in 1959. He then graduated from Brown University in 1963. He continued graduate education at Harvard University.http://bostoncamerata.com/joelcohen.html From 1968 to 2008 he was the director of the Boston Camerata
Boston Camerata
The Boston Camerata is an early music ensemble based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1954 by Narcissa Williamson, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, as an adjunct to that museum's musical instrument collection....
, generally considered to be the pre-eminent American early music ensemble. He remains connected to the Boston Camerata as Music Director Emeritus. Cohen founded the Camerata Mediterranea
Camerata mediterranea
Camerata Mediterranea is a French non-profit organization, an international, intercultural institute of musical exchanges. Camerata Mediterranea devotes itself to research, dialogue, and pedagogy involving the diverse musical civilizations of the Mediterranean basin, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim....
in 1990 and incorporated it as a nonprofit research institute in France in 2007 . He performs on lute and guitar and sings, but is best known as an organizer and creator of concert programs and sound recordings. In recent years Cohen's research and performance activities have centered on early American repertoires (including Shaker song), as well as southern European repertoires of the Middle Ages. Many of his projects in this latter category involve collaboration with Middle Eastern musicians (see below).
He has collaborated very frequently with French soprano Anne Azéma
Anne Azéma
Anne Azéma, is French-born soprano and artistic director of the Boston Camerata. She has been an important or leading singer of early music since 1993. She has co-directed programs for the Boston Camerata and is also noted as a music scholar...
, the Artistic Director (since 2008) of the Boston Camerata, and has also worked with numerous choirs, including the Schola Cantorum
Schola Cantorum
The Schola Cantorum de Paris is a private music school in Paris. It was founded in 1894 by Charles Bordes, Alexandre Guilmant and Vincent d'Indy as a counterbalance to the Paris Conservatoire's emphasis on opera...
and student choruses at Brown, Brandeis, Harvard and other universities. His professional honors include the Signet Society Medal (Harvard University), the Howard Mayer Brown Award, the Erwin Bodky Award, and the Georges Longy Award. He was a government-appointed artist-in-residence in the Netherlands during the year 2000, and is an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic.
Cohen studied composition at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. He was awarded a Danforth Fellowship and spent two years in Paris as a student of Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger...
. In the 1970s he spent two seasons as a producer of musical radio programs for the French National Radio (France Musique), where he originated the concept of an all-day musical celebration on the days of the solstice, an idea later to be adapted as a national celebration each June 21 in France. This annual event is currently known as the "Fête de la Musique
Fête de la Musique
The Fête de la Musique, also known as World Music Day, is a music festival taking place on June 21.-History:The idea was first broached in 1976 by American musician Joel Cohen, then employed by the national French radio station France Musique. Cohen proposed an all-night music celebration at the...
" also known as "World Music Day".
Work in European early music
Cohen's initial projects in the early music field were in the area of the French and English Renaissance. His enthusiasm for medieval and Renaissance music continues to be reflected in recent projects, including a series of commissioned programs (2001–2008) for the Gardner Museum, Boston, around Italian repertoires of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. His forays into baroque repertoire have been more episodic but have attracted widespread comment and attention: the first early-instruments recording of Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas"(Harmonia Mundi, 1980), and a well-received recording of Jean Gilles' "Requiem" (Erato, 1990, among others. From 1986 forward, many of his new Eurocentric projects dealt with music of the Middle Ages, including a medieval retelling of the "Tristan and Iseult" legend (Erato, Grand Prix du Disque, 1987).Work in early American music
Cohen's interest in American vernacular traditions dates from his childhood lessons on folk guitar, and his experience in later student years as a jazz bassist. He was introduced to southern shapenote hymnbooks by his mentor at Harvard University, the composer Randall Thompson, and by Alan Lomax's field recordings of Sacred Harp sings. Cohen later travelled to the South on several occasions to participate in Sacred Harp sings and conventions. His first program with the Boston Camerata involving extensive treatment of early American oral and written sources was "The Roots of American Music" (1976), released as an Advent cassette, and later re-recorded (1986) as "New Britain". The commercial success of this last recording, released after a lapse of several years by the French label Erato, leads Cohen and the Erato label to record a series of early American programs with the Boston Camerata, including "The American Vocalist", "Trav'ling Home", and "Liberty Tree". For the 1992 celebration of the Columbus year, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival invite Cohen and the Camerata to prepare a program of early Hispanic repertoire from the New World. This project becomes "Nueva España", recorded by Erato and subsequently one of the Boston Camerata's most requested touring programs.Cohen, the Boston Camerata, and the Shakers
Informed by Shaker music scholar, Roger Hall, of the Shaker library at Sabbathday Lake, Maine, and its extensive musical holdings, Cohen traveled to that still-functioning religious community to do research on Shaker manuscript sources. He and his wife, soprano Anne Azéma, also began an enduring personal relationship with the members of the community, who agreed to record and perform their music in the company of the Boston Camerata and collaborating choirs. Two CDs of Shaker song (Simple GiftsSimple Gifts
"Simple Gifts" is a Shaker song written and composed in 1848 by Elder Joseph Brackett.It has endured many inaccurate descriptions. Though often classified as an anonymous Shaker hymn or as a work song, it is better classified as a dance song.-Lyrics:...
and The Golden Harvest) commemorate these collaborations, which continued for several seasons from 1992 forward.
In 2004 Cohen and the Finnish choreographer Tero Saarinen created a dance piece, "Borrowed Light", using live Shaker music. This production has toured extensively in France, Germany, England, Sweden, Finland, Italy, and the United States, most recently at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in November, 2007.
Intercultural musical activities
Cohen's interest in cross-cultural and intercultural musical encounters have led to projects exploring early African and Amerindian contributions to New World music ("Nueva España", cited above), and to several endeavors with Middle Eastern/Near Eastern artists.As early as 1982, Joel and the Boston Camerata had developed a program called "The Sacred Bridge," exploring Jewish and Christian interactions during the Middle Ages. In 1988 Erato Disques decided to make a recording of this program. Still in demand after more than two decades, the recording has recently been reissued on Warner Classics.
The "Sacred Bridge" program continues to tour internationally, most recently (March 2010) in Montpellier, France. Since its inception it has undergone considerable development, and now includes an important Arabic/Muslim component. Recent performances have been undertaken with the U.S.- based Sharq Arabic Music Ensemble
In 1997 Joel Cohen met the eminent Moroccan musician Mohammed Briouel for the first time. Their encounter gave birth to a major production, a selection of the thirteenth century Cantigas
Cantigas de Santa Maria
The Cantigas de Santa Maria are 420 poems with musical notation, written in Galician-Portuguese during the reign of Alfonso X El Sabio and often attributed to him....
of King Alfonso el Sabio
Alfonso X of Castile
Alfonso X was a Castilian monarch who ruled as the King of Castile, León and Galicia from 1252 until his death...
with European and Moroccan musicians collaborating together. The recording, made in Fez, Morocco, was signed "Camerata Mediterranea," and included the participation of the Abdelkrim Rais orchestra of Fez, directed by Mr. Briouel.
The Cantigas recording won the coveted Edison Prize in 2000, and has toured extensively in the United States, Morocco, Germany, the Netherlands, and France.
"A Mediterranean Christmas", with the Boston Camerata and the Sharq Ensemble, is Cohen's most recent production exploring shared roots and musical practices. Recorded in 2005 for Warner Classics, and enthusiastically greeted by the musical press, the production has also toured live in the United States and France.
In recent seasons Joel Cohen has also untertaken collaborations with Dünya, a Turkish music ensemble, and its leader, Mehmet Sanlikol. With Camerata Mediterranea, he produced a colloquium in early summer 2009 around the subject of cross-cultural Mediterranean musical interactions, in the French village of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert
Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert
Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert is a commune in the Hérault department in Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France....
.
with the Boston Camerata
- The American Vocalist
- Trav'ling Home: American Spirituals, 1770-1870
- The Liberty Tree: American Music 1776-1861
- Carmina Burana
- Musique Judeo-Baroque
- Nueva España
- The Sacred Bridge: Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe
- Simple Gifts: Shaker Chants and Spirituals
- The Golden Harvest: More Shaker Chants and Spirituals
- New Britain: The Roots of American Folksong
- What Then Is Love?
- Gilles' Requiem
- Pierre Certon: Chansons & Messe "Sus Le Pont d'Avignon"
- A Medieval Christmas
- Noel, Noel: French Christmas Music 1200-1600
- A Baroque Christmas
- A Renaissance Christmas
- A Mediterranean Christmas
- An American Christmas: carols, hymns and spirituals, 1770-1870
- Sing We Noel: Christmas Music from England and Early America
with the Camerata Mediterranea
- Bernart de VentadornBernart de VentadornBernart de Ventadorn , also known as Bernard de Ventadour or Bernat del Ventadorn, was a prominent troubador of the classical age of troubadour poetry. Now thought of as "the Master Singer" he developed the cançons into a more formalized style which allowed for sudden turns...
: Le Fou sur le Pont - Lo Gai Saber
- Cantigas of Alfonso el Sabio with the Abdelkrim Rais Ensemble of Fez, Morocco (Edison Prize, 2000)
External links
- more complete discography
- Camerata Mediterranea Institute Wikipedia Page
- Camerata Mediterranea Institute Website
- Music of the Shakers