The new CD of Alla Elana Cohen - "Jupiter Duo" - was released on the 3rd of June 2010. The new album includes her compositions for Cello and Piano Duo, for solo Cello and solo Piano. The CD was recorded at Jordan Hall, NEC, by Sebastian Baverstam, internationally acclaimed, prize-winning young cellist and Alla Elana Cohen, pianist. "Jupiter Duo" celebrates 10 years of collaboration between Sebastian Baverstam and Alla Elana Cohen.
"The Day of
Atomenent" and "The Road That Chooses Us" were both released in February 2010. Click here to learn More>>
The CD "The Route of Compassion" is released and can be purchased on CD Baby. Click here to learn More>>
"It was a superb concert. Alla, you speak for all humanity! I remember the wonderful high treble register of the cello and piano duet with Sebastian Baverstam, then, the marimba and vibraphone duet, the brevity and the spice of the harmony; and then a wonderful string quartet about which I am still thinking; and I loved the piano solos and the conclusion of the concert: The Inner Temple, Sveti-tshoveli. My ears are still feasting on the concerts that you and Gunther Schuller did this week."
-- Ran Blake's impressions of the 02/12/09 concert at
Stanford Calderwood Pavilion
"
It was so wonderful being in the Keller Room (NEC) last night for Alla
Cohen's concert. Her music was glorious, cinematic, her spices, her rhythm,
her harmonies, her ensemble - what a pleasure for the listener!"
-- Ran Blake, internationally acclaimed pianist and composer, who has performed throughout the US and Europe, McArthur Foundation Award (Genius' Grant) recipient, founder and for many years chair of Contemporary Improvisation Department of NEC
"The relentless intensity of Alla Cohen's music, its characteristic texture and powerful urgency, reveal a composer whose music emerges from the deepest sourses of passion and engagement. Her expressive dynamic is matched by her technical mastery and by her high-minded aesthetic. There is no compromise here. This is music, that simply must be."
-- Yehudi Wyner, internationally acclaimed composer and pianist, Pulitzer Prize in Music winner (2006),for 14 years professor and head of Composition Department at Yale University,professor of Cornell, Harvard and Brandeis Universities.
Welcome to the website of Alla Elana Cohen, a distinguished composer, pianist, teacher, music theorist and author. Her creative work is inspired by the Divine, the main contents and purpose of her music and piano play is to sing Glory to Almighty, and the motto of her life is: "To live in God, for God and with God".
Alla Elana Cohen considers all her musical compositions a gigantic cycle of prayers; in her opinion, music-making is the most natural and powerful form of prayer. She receives her music directly from the Source, and considers herself as a "God's Flute" - a humble tool, through which Almighty sends people his message of Love, Light, Mercy, Compassion, Peace, Goodness and Beauty.
“The relentless intensity of Alla Cohen's music, its characteristic texture and powerful urgency, reveal a composer whose music emerges from the deepest sources of passion and engagement. Her expressive dynamic is matched by her technical mastery and by her high-minded aesthetic. There is no compromise here. This is music that simply must be.”
--Yehudi Wyner
- The concerts of new music of Alla Elana Cohen will take place on the 1st of May and the 5th of June, at Old South Church, Boston (645 Boylston Street, at Copley Square), both concerts will start at 7:30 pm. Tickets $20, $15 for students.
- The recent concert of Alla Elana Cohen: "An Evening of Opera-Buffa and Instrumental Ensembles" was warmly received. Susan Miron of The Boston Musical Intelligencer writes "Evidence abounded — as if the enthusiastic audience needed proof — at Boston’s Old South Church on June 7 that Alla Elana Cohen is a musical force to be reckoned with...I am in awe. The audience gave her a standing ovation. She earned every note of it." Read the full review here>>
- The National Academy of Music honored Alla Elana Cohen with the title "Honorary Fellow of the National Academy of Music" - the highest, the most senior title and degree of honorary membership, which is conferred only upon musicians of eminence, distinction and very high creative achievements. This Honorary Fellowship gives Alla Elana Cohen the right to use post nominal letters HonFNAM after her name. The National Academy of Music is based in Colorado, USA, and has its International Office in Thessaloniki, Greece.
- Alla Elana Cohen won the International Prize for Excellence in Composition, awarded by National Academy Of Music in Greece, in conjunction with Municipal Conservatories in Neapolis and Sykies, Greece.
- Alla Elana Cohen's recent concert, sponsored by Israeli Consulate at Goethe Institute, Boston, MA, received press coverage throughout the area. Read Recent Press>>
- Alla was recently featured in a Boston Globe video special
- Ms. Cohen was also featured by WGHB. "The TV host, Jared Bowen, remarked that WGBH received many highly positive responses to his segment on Alla Cohen--a lot of good feedback, in which people praised both the music and Alla's sincerity and told the station how touched they were with it."
- " Composer Alla Cohen is a pianist and music teacher whose deeply spiritual works are reaching a broader audience," writes the Boston Globe.
Read the full Boston Globe article about Alla Cohen. - "...sophisticated harmonies and rhythms... blazed forth with utter clarity...'The Music of Alla Cohen' brings this intriguing and worthwhile composer before the public eye in a way that hopefully will lead to more concerts outside academia. Read the full Edge Boston review
- "Alla Elana Cohen may be the best classical musician you’ve never heard of," writes The Boston Phoenix in their recent coverage. Read more about Alla and review the Editors Pick concert coverage.
- "Rhythm Divine", a feature in Bay Windows is currently available and chronicles the life and work of Alla.
- "Pianist/composer Alla Cohen Scales New Heights" is published online at Boston Herald.com.
- Alla Elana Cohen's CD "Jupiter Duo" is being recorded at NEC, at Jordan Hall. It will contain five compositions for Cello and Piano, and solo Piano Pieces. Cello part is played by Sebastian Baverstam, Alla Elana Cohen plays the piano.
Alla Cohen's CD "Dedications" is now released. It contains two of her String Quartets,Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano, compositions for Cello and Piano, for Violin and Piano and for solo Cello.
Alla Elana Cohen is a distinguished composer, pianist, music theorist and teacher who came to the
United States in 1989 from Soviet Russia. Receiving her education in Moscow and graduating from the
Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory with the highest honors of distinction, Ms. Cohen lives in
Boston, and is a member of the faculty of Berklee College of Music and of New England Conservatory of
Music.
As a composer, Alla Cohen works in all genres of orchestral, chamber and operatic music, and has an extensive catalogue of original compositions. Alla Cohen’s compositions, often with the composer at the piano, are regularly performed and recorded with much success and acclaim. In February 2010, a concert of the composer’s music was presented and sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel to New England at the Goethe-Institut Boston. In this concert, Ms. Cohen’s works were performed by stellar Israeli musicians, including the internationally acclaimed Ariel String Quartet, world-renowned clarinetist Moran Katz, and outstanding Boston Symphony Orchestra cellist Mickey Katz. In its editor’s pick of this concert, the Boston Globe wrote, “and when the program features compositions of pianist and composer Alla Cohen, you go.” The Boston Musical Intelligencer wrote, “it was a full house with everyone determined not to miss out on this important event…the concert was certainly a success." In 2009, Ms. Cohen presented a landmark concert at the Boston Center for the Arts Calderwood Pavilion, which was of great note in the local press, including the Boston Globe (“Composer Alla Cohen is a pianist and music teacher whose works are reaching a broader audience”), the Boston Herald (“Pianist/composer Alla Cohen scales new heights”), the Boston Phoenix editor’s pick (“Alla Elana Cohen may be the best classical musician you’ve never heard of”), WGBH TV (“She’s absolutely fascinating,” and [we’ve] “received many highly positive responses to this segment on Alla Cohen–a lot of good feedback, in which people praised both the music and Alla’s sincerity”), and in a featured video on boston.com.
Alla Cohen’s CD entitled Dedications was released in September 2008. Her next, The Route of Compassion, was recorded live at the Calderwood Pavilion concert and was released in the summer of 2009. The CD The Road That Chooses Us was released simultaneously with The Day of Atonement, and with these two latest CDs, the composer presents many of her recent compositions for large ensembles, among other chamber works. A new CD of the composer’s chamber music was recently recorded in Jordan Hall at New England Conservatory for release at a concert in June 2010. Entitled Jupiter Duo, the CD features Alla Cohen performing her works with her long-time performer and international prize winner, cellist Sebastian Baverstam.
Alla Elana Cohen has been recognized as a composer by ASCAP, being annually a recipient of ASCAPLUS Awards, and has received commissions from the Music Teachers National Association, and several outstanding solo musicians. Alla Cohen has been awarded as a teacher by ASCAP with a special award for “inspiring, educating and mentoring young musicians to become composers of tomorrow,” as well as being the recipient of numerous certificates of recognition and awards as a teacher of MTNA Young Composers’ Competition national level winners. She was also awarded with the Ted Pease Excellence in Teaching Award by Berklee College of Music in 2007. Many composition students of Professor Cohen have been prize winners of numerous prestigious state, national and international composers’ competitions, including the Queen Elisabeth Composers’ Competition, Belgium; ASCAP Morton Gould Award; Composers’ Competition in Haifa, Israel; Lepo Sumera Competition, Estonia; Robert Helps Prize; Beethoven Club Competition; International Young Artists Competition, Connecticut; Pikes Peak National Young Composers’ Competition; and the National Level of the MTNA Competition. Alla Cohen is the author of an ear-training book, Perfect Pitch for You, published in 2007 by Len Rhodes Music Publishing, and the author of two books dedicated to various aspects of harmony: The Art of Modulation and In the Vertical Realm.
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