Arnaldo Cohen
piano

Biography

Brazilian-born pianist Arnaldo Cohen enjoys an increasingly successful career that has taken him to the major concert halls of Europe, North and South America. He has performed with the Royal Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Santa Cecilia Orchestra of Rome under such leading conductors as Kurt Masur, Yehudi Menuhin and Wolfgang Sawallish.

Cohen’s recent North American performances have spanned the United States from Oregon to Florida and from Texas to Wisconsin. Highlights include engagements with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His demand as a recitalist continues with appearances at prestigious concert series including a critically acclaimed performance at New York’s Town Hall. In the 9/10 season, Mr. Cohen performs all of the Beethoven Concerti and the Triple Concerto with Carlos Kalmar and the Oregon Symphony and returns to the Seattle Symphony performing Rachmaninoff’s 4th Concerto  and the Jacksonville Symphony performing the Rachmaninoff  3rd Concerto and returns to London for performances with the London Philharmonic.  In 08-09 he performed Beethoven 4th Concerto with the New Jersey Symphony and returned in recital to San Francisco, Philadelphia, Quebec, and Portland.  In 2009, he records the Rachmaninoff 4th and 1st Concerti with the Sao Paulo State Symphony with Yan Pascal Tortelier conducting, finishing his recording of the complete cycle of Rachmaninoff Concerti and the Paganini Variations with the Sao Paulo Orchestra, which is scheduled for release in the fall of 2010.

In addition to recital engagements in the United States, Canada, Europe and South America, recent engagements included returns to the Philadelphia Orchestra and the orchestras of Milwaukee, Seattle and the Utah Symphony, among others. Cohen came to prominence after winning First Prize at the 1972 Busoni International Piano Competition and making his debut at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. For five years he was a member of the acclaimed Amadeus Trio and has performed with many string quartets, including the Lindsay and Chillingirian Quartets. He is a frequent recording artist, with recent discs including a 2007 rendering of the two Liszt Piano Concertos and the “Totentanz” with the Sao Paulo State Symphony Orchestra for BIS Records. His other two CDs on the same label, an all-Liszt solo and his pioneering CD, “Three Centuries of Brazilian Music”, have also generated accolades by critics. He has also recorded for Vox and Naxos.

An artist of diverse interests and talents, Cohen began his musical studies at the age of five, graduating from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro with an honors degree in both piano and violin, while also studying for an engineering degree. He went on to become a professional violinist in the Rio de Janeiro Opera House Orchestra to earn his livelihood while continuing piano studies with Jacques Klein, a disciple of the legendary American pianist William Kapell. Cohen pursued further training in Vienna with Bruno Seidlhofer and Dieter Weber.

Cohen is the recipient of an honorary fellowship awarded by the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and until recently held a professorship at the Royal Academy of Music in London. After living in London for 23 years, he recently relocated to the United States where he holds a piano professorship at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Critical Acclaim

Atlanta Constitution
By Pierre Ruhe

"He's a big pianist, a large man with a roaring, muscular tone, digital precision and individual interpretations. He is debonair at the keyboard, and he is wise."

San Francisco Chronicle
Allan Ulrich

"Aficionadas of superior pianism knew where to be Tuesday evening-in Herbst Theatre, where Brazilian-born, London artist Arnaldo Cohen made an often-stunning return to the city that barely took note of his debut in 1995. In the interim, an underground swell of admiration(if not quite a cult) has developed around this dapper musician, and this San Francisco Performances recital--a banquet of Schoenberg, Bach, Prokofiev and Chopin--made a first-timer understand why. This is a fabulous talent."

New York Times
Paul Griffiths

"He is a big pianist. His sound is splendid and full, and never clattery, even in scuh barnstroming passages as the coda to this Liszt work(Fantaisie Dramatique sur les Huguenots de Meyerbeer)."