My newest album ‘Voyagers‘ has been out in the universe for about three months now, and it’s been getting some wonderful coverage. I’ve also had the pleasure of sitting down with David Osenberg, WWFM’s Music Director and Host of award-winning Cadenza to talk about ‘Voyagers’ and my artistic life.
Reviews:
Musical Voyages, Review by ‘All About the Arts’
“[Playing for our lives, about the Terezín concentration camp,] depicts in intensely poignant music the desolation of those who died, and the glimmer of hope shared as a necessary burden by the surviving witnesses of those who lived to tell.”
Voyaging With the Cassatt’s and Gerald Cohen, Review by Steven Kennedy
“Cohen’s music is captivating and quite moving. The music moves beautifully with the borrowed tunes aiding in an expanded lyrical style. Harmonically, there are some hints toward modernist styles, but the music also may come back into more traditional sounds. The latter tend to be like flashes of memory. The Cassatt Quartet is a perfect match to this music with moving performances and attention to detail that brings out some of the jauntier syncopations rhythmically. Both Arutyunian and Williams are well attuned to the nuances of Cohen’s music as well and that serves to make [Voyagers and Preludes and Debka] engaging bookends on this excellent new release.”
“This is a new and appealing possibility to follow the interesting and eclectic compositional style of Mr. Cohen—a style which is difficult to define, rich in various citations, changing constantly and seemingly uniting the not-so-easy-to-unite….This album is of very high quality in all its parts, from the compositional work to the interpretative skills, the sound quality being of the highest standard, too—an easy recommendation.”
Trips to Far Places, Gerald Cohen: Voyagers, Review by Interlude
“American composer Gerald Cohen took two 20th-century musical phenomena and created two thoughtful works about them. The two phenomena represent the best and the worst in the human race…I think he’s been entirely successful in portraying both the close majesty of space and the confined misery of Theresienstadt.”
Review (page 54-55), Editor’s Corner in the WholeNote
“The music [of Playing for our lives] is at once angry, contemplative, full of angst, uplifting and haunting, ultimately ending in sublime quietude…[Preludes and Debka brings] this intriguing and sometimes surprising disc to an end.”
Strings Alone and Combined, Review by infodad.com
“All three pieces on the disc are carefully structured and well-thought-out, and all contain memorable elements.”
“What matters in the end is the authentic and dedicated performativity of it all, the highly crafted and careful building of a particular work from the ground up with great care, skill, and eloquently inventive qualities.”