#1 Facebook Page for classical clarinet passes 78,000 fans!

My Fan Page on Facebook just passed the 78,000-fan mark, main­tain­ing it’s po­si­tion as the #1 clas­si­cal clar­inetist page on Face­book in the world, and con­tin­u­ing to grow in pop­u­lar­ity faster than ever. Thank you to all my friends, fans and sup­port­ers for help­ing me to reach this milestone!!

LATEST NEWS

2020

Cohler plays and conducts Mozart

My lat­est CD of my “plays and con­ducts” se­ries is out every­where on Au­gust 7! The record­ing fea­tures my new edi­tions of the Mozart’s Clar­inet Concerto, Sym­phony No. 35, and the over­tures to Don Giovanni and The Magic Flute. It’s also the debut record­ing of the new Royal Glo­bel bas­set clar­inet that I helped to de­sign. You can pre-or­der it on Ama­zon now, or order it di­rect from On­gaku Records, and it will be avail­able pretty much every­where on Au­gust 7, in­clud­ing iTunes, Apple Music, Google Play, Tidal, and Nap­ster. This pro­ject has been the cul­mi­na­tion of a life­time of work, so I hope you will check it out. You can also here sam­ples and read the great re­views here. Fan­fare Magazine's Bertil van Boer gave it a 5-Star rating and said it “should be the stan­dard for Mozart!” It will be fea­tured on the cover of the No­vem­ber/De­cem­ber issue too.
   The pre­vi­ous CD in the se­ries was Cohler plays and con­ducts Weber which has re­ceived rave re­views all around!

2019

My new edition of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto

This is my first re­leased “Cohler Sig­na­ture Edi­tion” and I had to start with the great­est piece of music ever writ­ten for the clar­inet: Mozart’s Clar­inet Con­certo in A Major, KV 622!
    The new edi­tion in­cludes a full-score, com­plete or­ches­tra parts, and a bas­set clar­inet / reg­u­lar clar­inet in A com­bined part. This is the first edi­tion to com­bine the lat­est mu­si­co­log­i­cal re­search with de­tailed pe­riod-ap­pro­pri­ate per­for­mance mark­ings, in­clud­ing dy­nam­ics, bow­ings, fin­ger­ings, tempi, mu­si­cal in­di­ca­tions, mea­sure num­bers, and re­hearsal let­ters. And this is the edi­tion used for my new record­ing of the Con­certo com­ing out in 2020.
    It also in­cludes an ex­ten­sively re­searched and foot­noted pref­ace ex­plain­ing the his­tory of the Con­certo. Printed on the high­est qual­ity, bright-white, heavy paper for max­i­mum read­abil­ity and dura­bil­ity, and pro­tected by an at­trac­tive, high-qual­ity, full-color cover to en­sure the longevity of your music col­lec­tion, it will last you a lifetime.

2018

Music for Peace: Chamber Music Boston

In the final con­cert of the 2017-2018 Music for Peace series, Boston’s newest cham­ber music en­sem­ble, Cham­ber Music Boston, per­form works for clar­inet, vi­o­lin, cello and piano, in­clud­ing Beethoven’s Clar­inet Trio, Op. 11, Bar­tok’s Con­trasts, and Stravin­sky’s L’His­toire du Sol­dat. I am very ex­cited to per­form with world-renowned vi­o­lin­ist Jamie Buswell, mul­ti­ple prize win­ning pi­anist Rasa Vitkauskaite, and Con­cert Artists Guild win­ning cel­list Se­bas­t­ian Bäverstam. We will also pre­sent in­ter­est­ing his­tor­i­cal in­tro­duc­tions to each work on the pro­gram mak­ing it an ex­cit­ing evening for all! The con­cert ben­e­fits the Mass­a­chu­setts Peace Ac­tion Ed­u­ca­tion Fund. Last sea­son co-Artis­tic Di­rec­tor Rasa Vitkauskaite and I founded Cham­ber Music Boston and we have plans for many cham­ber music com­bi­na­tions to come. Stay tuned!

2017

Interview on Clarinet Corner with Tim Phillips

I re­cently had the plea­sure of in­ter­view­ing with Tim Phillips who for many years now pro­duces a reg­u­lar radio show on Troy Pub­lic Radio fo­cus­ing to­tally on the clar­inet! We had a fun time talk­ing about Weber and my new CD.

Topping the Weber, Indie, and Clarinet Charts!

Thanks to my friends and fans all over the world, my Weber CD has made it to #3 on the Ama­zon Weber Charts above Leonard Bern­stein, Arthur Fielder, and Ar­turo Toscanini! It is also top 20 in all of Indie Classical, and is at #21 on the Clar­inet Charts! To lis­ten to sam­ples, read more about the CD, see pho­tos, and buy it click here.

Fanfare Reviews and Interview

The March-April issue of Fan­fare Magazine fea­tures a bunch of great re­views of my new CD Cohler plays and con­ducts Weber!Be­cause the issue is cur­rent, I be­lieve all of those re­views are ac­ces­si­ble to the pub­lic. In case you would like to read more than what the On­gaku Records ad shows here, you can click here for the four re­views ex­cerpted at left: Dave Saemann, Ronald E. Grames, Colin Clarke, and Jerry Dubins. Also, for those who want to learn more about me, there is a great fea­ture ar­ti­cle in­ter­view with me by Carl Maria Verdino-Süllwold. If you are in­ter­ested in get­ting the CD ei­ther in hard copy, dig­i­tal down­load, or stream­ing, it is avail­able at Ama­zon, CD Baby, iTunes (and Apple Music), Google Play, On­gaku, and many other re­sellers on the web. You can also click on the ad at left to see a larger ver­sion! Thank you for your support!

2016

Amazon Best Seller CDs

M y CDs are doing great on the Top 100 Best­seller lists at Ama­zon thanks to all my fans and friends who make this pos­si­ble! As of Jan­u­ary 7, More Cohler on Clarinet was #2 on the Schu­mann list next to Jacque­line Dupré, #12 on the Poulenc list, and #6 on the Dar­ius Mil­haud list! As of Jan­u­ary 6, my very first CD, Cohler on Clarinet was at #62 on the Weber list! As of De­cem­ber 29, my new Weber CD was in the TOP 100 of Ama­zon's In­de­pen­dent Clas­si­cal at #83 and on De­cem­ber 20, it was #52 in Clar­inet along­side col­leagues pre­sent and past Richard Stoltzman, Karl Leister, Sabine Meyer, Michael Collins, Jack Brymer, and Joaquin Valdepeñas! On De­cem­ber 8, my Mes­si­aen CD was at #5 on the Mes­si­aen list, #1 of all record­ings of the Quar­tet for the End of Time, and #24 among all clar­inet recordings just above col­league Mar­tin Frost's ex­cel­lent record­ing of the Mozart Clar­inet Con­certo! See below for more rank­ings from De­cem­ber 8 and click on the links to see where they are now! Or click on the cov­ers to buy on Amazon!

• 
  • #2 Robert Schumann
  • #6 Dar­ius Milhaud
  • #12 Fran­cis Poulenc
  • #50 Indie Classical
• 
  • #62 Carl Maria von Weber
• 
  • #1 Er­land von Koch
  • #20 Vin­cent Persichetti
  • #39 Olivier Messiaen
• 
  • #27 Arthur Honegger
  • #73 Dar­ius Milhaud
• 
  • #5 Olivier Messiaen
  • #24 Clar­inet
    
• 
  • #73 Robert Schumann

Chamber Music Boston Debut Concert with Ilya Kaler

T chaikovsky Com­pe­ti­tion Gold Medal vi­o­lin­ist Ilya Kaler joins me and my amaz­ing pi­anist Rasa Vitkauskaite, on Fri­day De­cem­ber 2 at 8:00 p.m., in an ex­cit­ing con­cert of trios for vi­o­lin, clar­inet, and piano. The pro­gram in­cludes Con­trasts by Bela Bartók, L'His­toire du Sol­dat by Igor Stravinsky, and the amaz­ing Klezmer Trio by Paul Schoenfield. We will pro­vide en­ter­tain­ing and in­for­ma­tive in­tro­duc­tions to each work in the in­ti­mate set­ting of the New School of Music, and all au­di­ence mem­bers are in­vited to a meet-the-artists re­cep­tion after the con­cert.

Seat­ing is lim­ited so get your TICK­ETS NOW HERE. For di­rec­tions and park­ing in­for­ma­tion click here.This con­cert is the in­au­gural per­for­mance of Cham­ber Music Boston, Boston's newest cham­ber music ensemble.

Masterclass and Concert at Rutgers University

Join us also on Mon­day, No­vem­ber 28 from 5 to 6:30 p.m. for a mas­ter­class at Rut­gers Uni­ver­sity in Schare Recital Hall, Mar­ry­ott Music Build­ing, 81 George Street (park­ing at 85 George Street), New Brunswick, New Jer­sey, fol­lowed by a con­cert at 8 p.m. in Nicholas Music Center, 85 George Street. The pro­gram in­cludes works by Rabaud, Poulenc, Cahuzac, Lu­toslawski, Guas­tavino, and D'Rivera and stu­dent tick­ets are only $5!

Masterclass at Queens College

On Mon­day, No­vem­ber 28 from 12:15 to 1:30 p.m. I will be doing a mas­ter­class at the Aaron Cop­land School of Music of Queens Col­lege in Flush­ing, New York. The class will be held in Room 226 of the Music Build­ing for any­one who can come.

"Music from Good Shepherd" 20th Season

Join us for a Thanks­giv­ing Week­end con­cert at 6 p.m. on Sun­day, No­vem­ber 27 when we re­turn to Brook­lyn for the 20th sea­son of the “Music from Good Shep­herd” con­cert series at Good Shep­herd Roman Catholic Church, 1950 Batchelder Street, Brook­lyn, New York. The ex­cit­ing and var­ied con­cert program in­cludes Rabaud Solo de Concours, Poulenc Sonata, Cahuzac Ar­le­quin, Lu­toslawski Dance Preludes, Guas­tavino Tonada y Cueca, and Sar­gon Klez­Muzik. For more in­for­ma­tion on the whole se­ries, click here or call or email 718-998-2800, gsrcc@​aol.​com.

Incredible Review in Fanfare Magazine

“If ever a clar­inetist ex­hib­ited su­per­nat­ural pow­ers, it would be Jonathan Cohler. I adore Carl Maria von Weber’s music for clar­inet and or­ches­tra. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would hear it played like this. Back in the 1990s, I heard Richard Stoltz­man play Weber with the New Jer­sey Sym­phony under Christo­pher Sea­man. I have a mem­ory of the suavity and el­e­gance of the solo play­ing, but it was noth­ing like the full scale as­sault on the senses Cohler achieves…Cohler’s pro­gram ends with a great treat, Franz Liszt’s arrange­ment for piano and or­ches­tra of Weber’s Polon­aise bril­lante, orig­i­nally a piano solo. The pi­anist is Cohler’s reg­u­lar duo part­ner, Rasa Vitkauskaite, who plays with great wit and style, while Cohler’s ac­com­pa­ni­ment brims with warmth and good feeling...​The pre­sent CD re­ally is a must if you love Weber’s music. Even after you’ve heard it sev­eral times, it’s hard to be­lieve any­one can play the clar­inet like this.”
        —Fan­fare Magazine

Mozarteum University in Salzburg, Austria

O n No­vem­ber 18 and 19 I gave mas­ter­classes for the clar­inet stu­dents of the renowned Mozar­teum Uni­ver­sity in Salzburg, Aus­tria, where I was in­vited by Berlin Phil­har­monic Prin­ci­pal Clar­inetist Wen­zel Fuchs. The stu­dents were fan­tas­tic, the fa­cil­i­ties were won­der­ful, the food was mag­nif­i­cent, and it was such a plea­sure to fi­nally get to see this fa­mous city and birth­place of Wolf­gang Amadeus Mozart. Thank you to Wen­zel and to Dario Zin­gales, who so ex­pertly or­ga­nized every­thing and made my visit a great plea­sure. I look for­ward to many fu­ture trips back to this won­der­ful city. Pic­tures CLICK HERE.

Stellar Review by MusicWeb International

“The Con­certino and the two Con­cer­tos have Mozartean grace; they cer­tainly do in Cohler’s hands…Strik­ing at­ten­tion is paid through­out to dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion of dy­nam­ics. The two Con­cer­tos are flighty, ten­derly—even search­ingly—pen­sive and car­ingly del­i­cate. These are very thought­ful read­ings—lis­ten for ex­am­ple to the af­fect­ing ten­der­ness brought to bear in the slow move­ment of No. 2. It’s a credit to all con­cerned that these record­ings re­flect back a care­free liq­uid in­no­cence un­com­pro­mised by the gym­nas­tic fire­works, sparkling kin­dling and ex­u­ber­ant vir­tu­os­ity…The ro­man­tic el­e­ment—pre-echoes of Schu­mann and Berlioz—also comes across with fiery ten­sion and be­guil­ing del­i­cacy in the two over­tures…Vitkauskaite’s plan­gently played Polon­aise bril­lante—as arranged by Liszt—is a spir­ited and aris­to­cratic jeu d’es­prit car­ried off with style.”
        —Mu­sicWeb International

Mozart Quintet with Arianna String Quartet August 21

I had an amaz­ing time join­ing the renowned Ar­i­anna String Quartet to play Mozart’s Clar­inet Quintet on Sun­day, Au­gust 21, 2016 at 2pm on the Saint Gau­dens Sum­mer Con­cert Se­ries in the Lit­tle Stu­dio at Saint-Gau­dens Na­tional His­toric Site, 139 Saint Gau­dens Road, Cor­nish, NH 03745. The per­for­mances carry on a tra­di­tion by renowned sculp­tor Au­gus­tus Saint-Gau­dens, who often held con­certs in his stu­dio for fam­ily and friends. Ar­i­anna was in­cred­i­ble. I look for­ward to play­ing with them again soon!

New Weber CD released in August

My lat­est CD Cohler plays and con­ducts Weber (On­gaku 024-126) was re­leased on Au­gust 15 and is al­ready re­ceiv­ing rave re­views! I am very ex­cited about the pro­ject which has been many years in the mak­ing. It fea­tures the lat­est schol­ar­ship on the Weber Con­certino and two con­cer­tos in­clud­ing all of my own or­na­men­ta­tions, ca­den­zas and the like. Be­yond the con­cer­tos and Con­certino, the CD also in­cludes the over­tures from two of Weber’s most well known op­eras: Der Freischütz and Oberon. The last work on the CD, Polon­aise brillante was cho­sen to rep­re­sent Weber’s piv­otal works for piano, which were such an im­por­tant part of his ca­reer and con­tri­bu­tion to the music world. The piano soloist on the Polon­aise is none other than my amaz­ing duo part­ner and mul­ti­ple award win­ning Lithuan­ian pi­anist Rasa Vitkauskaite.The CD is avail­able on On­gaku Records, Ama­zon, CD Baby, iTunes, Apple Music, Google Play, and most CD ven­dors around the world. You can also lis­ten to sound sam­ples and see pic­tures as well as this cool short promo video we made dur­ing the sessions.

Camerino, Italy August 11-16

B eau­ti­ful Camerino, Italy fea­tured mas­ter­classes fol­lowed by the 6th Eu­ro­pean Clar­inet Fes­ti­val fea­tur­ing yours truly. It was such a beau­ti­ful en­vi­ron­ment for a clar­inet fes­ti­val su­perbly or­ga­nized by Piero Vin­centi. It is so sad that the re­gion has been dev­as­tated by sev­eral re­cent earthquakes.

Central Conservatory - Beijing and Qindao, China July 24-28

T he In­ter­na­tional Clar­inet Fes­ti­val held at the Cen­tral Con­ser­va­tory in Bei­jing fea­tured mas­ter­classes and recital by yours truly. I'll also hopped a quick plane to Qin­dao for a recital there be­fore re­turn­ing home. My con­cert there in­cluded Brahms Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 120, No. 2, D’Rivera In­vitación al Danzón, Bern­stein Sonata, and Sar­gon Klez­Muzik. With­out a doubt this was the best or­ga­nized fes­ti­val I have ever been to in China, and the lion's share of the credit for that goes to my good friend Yuan Yuan, Pro­fes­sor of Clar­inet at the Cen­tral Con­ser­va­tory, and clar­inetist of the China Phil­har­monic Orchestra.

Gabor Varga at Boston Clarinet Academy June 4-5, 2016

Hun­gar­ian Na­tional Radio Or­ches­tra Prin­ci­pal Clar­inetist Gabor Varga joined us at Boston Clar­inet Academy on June 4 and 5, 2016 for our sev­enth in­ten­sive week­end of clar­inet mas­ter­classes, sem­i­nars, en­sem­ble, and all things clar­inet! Pic­tures com­ing soon.

Luis Rossi at Boston Clarinet Academy May 21-22

Soloist and clar­inet maker Luis Rossi from Chile joined us at Boston Clar­inet Academy on May 21 and 22, 2016 for our sixth in­ten­sive week­end of clar­inet mas­ter­classes, sem­i­nars, en­sem­ble, and all things clar­inet! Pic­tures HERE.

Wenzel Fuchs at Boston Clarinet Academy April 16-17

Berlin Phil­har­monic Prin­ci­pal Clar­inetist Wen­zel Fuchs joined us at Boston Clar­inet Academy on April 16 and 17, 2016 for our fifth in­ten­sive week­end of clar­inet mas­ter­classes, sem­i­nars, en­sem­ble, and all things clar­inet! Pic­tures HERE.

Meiningen Trio at Taylor House April 15-16, 2016

Karel Dohnal at Boston Clarinet Academy March 26-27, 2016

Soloist and Prague Opera clar­inetist Karel Dohnal joined us at Boston Clar­inet Academy on March 26 and 27, 2016 for our fourth in­ten­sive week­end of clar­inet mas­ter­classes, sem­i­nars, en­sem­ble, and all things clar­inet! His rare per­for­mance of Stock­hausen’s Harlekin was ab­solutely breath­tak­ing! Pic­tures HERE.

Philippe Cuper at Boston Clarinet Academy February 13-14, 2016

Paris Opera Prin­ci­pal Clar­inetist Philippe Cuper joined us at Boston Clar­inet Academy on Feb­ru­ary 13 and 14, 2016 for our third in­ten­sive week­end of clar­inet mas­ter­classes, sem­i­nars, en­sem­ble, and all things clar­inet! His classes and live per­for­mance were a real treat for all. He played his own edited ver­sion of a fan­tasy on themes from Un ballo in maschera along with a bril­liant ren­di­tion of Pas­torale and Scherzo by Jean Aubain. Pic­tures HERE.

Meiningen Trio at Taylor House

On Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 12, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. my Meinin­gen Trio played an ex­cit­ing con­cert at the Tay­lor House, 50 Bur­roughs St, Ja­maica Plain, MA 02130. The Meinin­gen Trio in­cludes my­self, cel­list Se­bas­t­ian Baverstam, and pi­anist Rasa Vitkauskaite. We are the new En­sem­ble in Res­i­dence at the Tay­lor House and this was our in­au­gural pro­gram as such. The Valen­tine’s Day week­end pro­gram en­ti­tled “Wings of Love” fea­tured a se­lec­tion of beau­ti­ful ro­man­tic reper­toire: Glinka Trio Pathetique, Bruch Eight Pieces, Op. 83 (se­lec­tions), and Fauré Trio in D Minor, Op. 120

Yuan Yuan at Boston Clarinet Academy January 23-24, 2016

Bei­jing Cen­tral Con­ser­va­tory Pro­fes­sor and China Phil­har­monic Or­ches­tra Prin­ci­pal Clar­inetist Yuan Yuan joined us at Boston Clar­inet Academy on Jan­u­ary 23 and 24, 2016 for our sec­ond in­ten­sive week­end of clar­inet mas­ter­classes, sem­i­nars, en­sem­ble, and all things clar­inet! Pro­fes­sor Yuan also brought six of his top stu­dents from the Cen­tral Con­ser­va­tory with him, and we had a won­der­ful time work­ing to­gether and hear­ing their stu­dent sex­tet per­form Ital­ian in Algiers by Rossini! Pic­tures HERE.

2015

Franklin Cohen at Boston Clarinet Academy October 31-November 1, 2015

Recently re­tired long-time Prin­ci­pal Clar­inetist of the Cleve­land Or­ches­tra Franklin Cohen joined us at Boston Clar­inet Academy on Oc­to­ber 31 and No­vem­ber 1, 2015 for our in­au­gural in­ten­sive week­end of clar­inet mas­ter­classes, sem­i­nars, en­sem­ble, and all things clar­inet! Frank shared his deep knowl­edge and per­spec­tive on clar­inet play­ing, au­di­tion tak­ing, music mak­ing, and the joy of per­form­ing with a very en­thu­si­as­tic class of stu­dents from all over the world. Frank and I en­joyed play­ing the Mendelssohn Con­cert­piece No. 1 in F Minor to­gether on the clos­ing con­cert. A great time was had by all. Pic­tures HERE.

Meiningen Trio at Taylor House

On Fri­day, Au­gust 28, 2015 at 7:30 p.m. I played an ex­cit­ing con­cert with the Meinin­gen Trio at the Tay­lor House, 50 Bur­roughs St, Ja­maica Plain, MA 02130. The Meinin­gen Trio in­cluded my­self, cel­list Se­bas­t­ian Baver­stam, and pi­anist Rasa Vitkauskaite. The pro­gram fea­tured three B’s: Beethoven, Bruch, and Bridge. All of the works are tran­scrip­tions. The Beethoven Trio Op. 38 is Beethoven’s own tran­scrip­tion of his wildly suc­cess­ful ear­lier Septet Op. 20. The Bruch Eight Pieces, Op. 83 is orig­i­nally writ­ten for clar­inet, viola, and piano but he also made a cello part to re­place the viola. In the Bridge Phan­tasy Trio in C Minor, H. 79 I tran­scribed the orig­i­nal vi­o­lin part for the clar­inet.

ClarinetFest 2015, Madrid

From July 22 to 26, 2015 I was in Madrid for the an­nual Clar­inet­Fest of the In­ter­na­tional Clar­inet As­so­ci­a­tion. I taught a mas­ter­class, played a recital on Fri­day, July 24 at 6 p.m., and judged the final round of the ICA Young Artist Com­pe­ti­tion on Sat­ur­day morn­ing, July 25. My recital pro­gram in­cluded my own tran­scrip­tion of Schu­mann Ada­gio and Al­le­gro, Op. 70, along with Guas­tavino Sonata, and D'Rivera Vals Venezolano. It was a lot of fun! My pi­anist was as usual the amaz­ing Rasa Vitkauskaite, whose re­cently re­leased debut solo CD Re­flec­tions has been hailed through­out the in­ter­na­tional clas­si­cal music press in­clud­ing Fan­fare, Gramo­phone and oth­ers. I look for­ward to this gath­er­ing of clar­inetists each year where I can re­con­nect with so many good friends from around the world.

Arezzo July 1 to 15, 2015!

From July 1 to 15, 2015 I taught in beau­ti­ful, his­toric Arezzo, Italy! The fes­ti­val in­cluded a full per­for­mance of Mozart's Don Giovanni along with per­for­mances of Beethoven's Sym­phony No. 4 and Con­certo for Violin. Stu­dents en­joyed cham­ber music con­certs, clar­inet choir, fac­ulty con­certs, opera, great Ital­ian food and gelato!! All stu­dents played in class nearly every day, and there was at least three hours of mas­ter­class per day.

Topping the Charts on Amazon!

A s of Mon­day, June 15, 2015, my CDs were chart­ing on the Best Seller lists of the top 100 best-sell­ing CDs in many cat­e­gories at Ama­zon! More Cohler on Clarinet ran #4 just be­hind my cel­list idol Jacque­line du Pré in the Schu­mann cat­e­gory and #51 for all Clar­inet music! The Clar­inet Alone was #75—fol­lowed closely by my CD Olivier Mes­si­aen: Quar­tet for the End of Time at #80—in music by Olivier Mes­si­aen, #1 in music by Er­land von Koch, and #22 in music by Vin­cent Per­sichetti! Moon­flow­ers, Baby! was at #83 in music by Arthur Honeg­ger! Thank you to all my fans and friends for mak­ing this pos­si­ble! Click on the links below to see the Ama­zon list­ings as of this morn­ing (they change on the hour).

• More Cohler on Clarinet
  
  
  • #4 in Music by Schu­mann, Robert
    
  • #51 in Clar­inet
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• Jonathan Cohler: The Clar­inet Alone
  
  
  • #1 in Music by Koch, Er­land von
  • #22 in Music by Per­sichetti, Vincent
  • #75 in Music by Mes­si­aen, Olivier
  
  
• Olivier Mes­si­aen: Quar­tet for the End of Time
  
  
  • #80 in Music by Mes­si­aen, Olivier
    
• Moon­flow­ers, Baby!
  
  
  • #83 in Music by Honeg­ger, Arthur
    
    

Cleveland Institute of Music

On Feb­ru­ary 2 and 3, 2015, I taught clar­inet stu­dents and did a mas­ter­class at the Cleve­land In­sti­tute of Music for the stu­dents of leg­endary Cleve­land Or­ches­tra prin­ci­pal clar­inetist Franklin Cohen, who has held that po­si­tion for forty years since 1976 and re­tired just a cou­ple of weeks ago. It was a great honor to be in­vited by Frank, and I had a won­der­ful time work­ing with all the ex­cel­lent stu­dents there! My pho­tos from the trip are here.

2014

Katowice, Poland

From De­cem­ber 10 to 14, 2014, I was hon­ored to be one of only two Amer­i­cans fea­tured at the 4th Eu­ro­pean Clar­inet Congress in Ka­tow­ice, Poland. I played a recital there and taught mas­ter­classes. It has been a long time since my last trip to Poland, and boy has it changed! The fes­ti­val was held at the Szy­manowski Acad­emy of Music which is a great mis­x­ture of old and new. All the fa­cil­i­ties there, in­clud­ing con­cert hall, cham­ber music halls, ex­hibit space, apart­ments, and even the cafe­te­ria, were amaz­ing! Arek Adamski and his team did an in­cred­i­ble job or­ga­niz­ing the en­tire event, and I am very proud to have been a part of it. My recital pro­gram there in­cluded Ar­turo Marquez Zara­ban­deo, Leonard Bern­stein Sonata, and Louis Cahuzac Can­tilène.

One of the con­certs there was held in the amaz­ing, brand new con­cert hall of the Pol­ish Na­tional Radio Sym­phony, which just opened a cou­ple of months ago. That is def­i­nitely one of the best halls in the world now.

American Tribute gets rave reviews

Amer­i­can Tribute has been get­ting rave re­views! Fan­fare Mag­a­zine's Richard Ka­plan writes, “This is one of the best clar­inet CDs to come along in some time. Highly rec­om­mended!" Paquito D'Rivera rec­om­mends, “This is a CD every clar­inetist should have in their col­lec­tion!” Colin Clarke notes, “It is easy to miss the vir­tu­os­ity on dis­play, the sheer mas­tery of in­stru­ment ... one can only mar­vel at Cohler’s silken even­ness of de­liv­ery ... Record­ing and pre­sen­ta­tion stan­dards are of the very high­est. Rec­om­mended, and not just to clar­inetists.”

Amer­i­can Trib­ute is avail­able for pur­chase on Ama­zon, CD Baby, and On­gaku Records. We ded­i­cate this record­ing to all the vic­tims of the ter­ror­ist bomb­ings at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. $1 from each CD will go to vic­tims of the bomb­ings and their fam­i­lies.

The CD fea­tures music for clar­inet and piano by great Amer­i­can com­posers of the last sev­enty years in­clud­ing Leonard Bernstein, Robert Muczynski, Simon Sargon, Dana Wilson, Vic­tor Babin, and Paquito D'Rivera.

This music spans three gen­er­a­tions of Amer­i­can com­posers in­clud­ing in­flu­ences from Jazz, to Klezmer, to Latin music. Start­ing with music from the young and prodi­giously tal­ented Leonard Bern­stein right after he grad­u­ated from Har­vard, and mov­ing through to the music of three of today's great­est liv­ing Amer­i­can com­posers, Dana Wil­son, Simon Sar­gon, and Paquito D'Rivera, this CD is a trea­sure trove of won­der­ful and char­ac­ter­is­tic reper­toire span­ning the styles, cul­tures, and tra­di­tions that are the melt­ing pot of Amer­ica.

Arezzo, Italy 2014

From July 15 to 29, 2014, I was back in Arezzo, Italy for mas­ter­classes, cham­ber music, and just a great time soak­ing in the Tus­can sun! Stu­dents came from Eu­rope, Canada, China, and the United States, and a great time was had by all.

ClarinetFest 2014

From July 29 to Au­gust 3, I was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at Clar­inet­Fest 2014. We played a recital at Louisiana State Uni­ver­sity in­clud­ing Ar­turo Mar­quez Zara­ban­deo, Simon Sar­gon Deep Ellum Nights, and Paquito D'Rivera In­vitación al Danzón. My amaz­ing pi­anist Rasa Vitkauskaite and I played for an en­thu­si­as­tic au­di­ence packed into the School of Music Recital Hall, and after the con­cert, we had the great honor of meet­ing Dana Wil­son, com­poser of the won­der­ful piece Liq­uid Ebony that we recorded on our just-re­leased CD Amer­i­can Tribute.

Argentina 2014

From Au­gust 9 to 15, I was in Ar­gentina doing con­certs and mas­ter­classes in Buenos Aires and Rosario. It had been sev­eral years since I was there, so I was very ex­cited to re­turn to that won­der­ful coun­try and see all my good friends there! Our pro­gram in­cluded Ar­turo Marquez Zara­ban­deo, Robert Schumann Three Ro­mances, Op. 94, Charles-Marie Widor In­tro­duc­tion et Rondo, Op. 72, Paquito D'Rivera In­vitación al Danzón, Simon Sar­gon Deep Ellum Nights: Three Sketches, and Luigi Bassi Fan­tasy on Themes from Bellini's "I Pu­ri­tani". See my album on Face­book for pic­tures from Argentina.

Brazil 2014

From Au­gust 16 to 26, I did a five-city tour of Brasil with con­certs and mas­ter­classes in Goia­nia, Brasilia, Belem, Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paulo! In Brasilia, I played Finzi's beau­ti­ful Con­certo for clar­inet and strings as well as a new arrange­ment of Bassi's Fan­ta­sia on Themes from “I Pu­ri­tani” for clar­inet and or­ches­tra with the Na­tional Sym­phony of Brasil.The tour also in­cluded sev­eral recitals with my amaz­ing pi­anist Rasa Vitkauskaite, as well as mas­ter­classes and cham­ber music.

Brahms Trio at Harvard-Epworth

On Sat­ur­day, May 10, 2014 I had the great plea­sure to play the Brahms Clar­inet Trio at Har­vard-Ep­worth United Methodist Church, 1555 Mass­a­chu­setts Av­enue, Cam­bridge, Mass­a­chu­setts in a ben­e­fit con­cert for the Mass­a­chu­setts Peace Ac­tion Ed­u­ca­tion Fund with great col­leagues. Join­ing me in the trio were pi­anist Vic­tor Rosenbaum and cel­list Anzel Gerber. Vi­o­lin­ist Jamie Buswell joined Vic­tor and Anzel in the Brahms Piano Trio in C Minor, and Vic­tor played the two In­ter­mezzi, Op. 118. Then on Sun­day, May 11 we trekked up to Wood­stock, Ver­mont and played the pro­gram again on the con­cert se­ries at the lovely Uni­tar­ian Uni­ver­sal­ist Church in Wood­stock. What a great way to spend the weekend!

RECENT NEWS

2013

Xativa, Spain 2013

From July 7 to 13, 2013, I was back in beau­ti­ful Xa­tiva, Spain teach­ing at the 5º Curso In­ter­na­cional de Mu­sica Ciu­tat de Xàtiva. The fes­ti­val was a 7-day in­ten­sive event, lead by Fran Moral, founder of Saete­bis Music So­ci­ety, and once again, the clar­inet stu­dio was com­pletely full. This sum­mer wasn't quite as hot as usual, which was a real re­lief! The stu­dents and my fac­ulty col­leagues were won­der­ful as al­ways. I had the honor of play­ing the Mozart Clar­inet Concerto, under the di­rec­tion of mae­stro Michael Thomas, and that was a treat! For pics and up­dates, check out the group on Facebook.

Tour of China

From March 13 to 25, 2013, I toured sev­eral ciies in China doing mas­ter­classes in Shenyang, Dalian, Lu­oyang, Zhengzhou, and Bei­jing. In Shenyang, I gave classes at the Shenyang Con­ser­va­tory for the stu­dents of Pro­fes­sor Dong Dejun. While in Lu­oyang, I gave a large pub­lic mas­ter­class, and had the won­der­ful op­por­tu­nity to visit the an­cient Long­men Grot­toes: 1400 bud­dhist caves that date back as far as 493 AD! In Zhengzhou, I gave a class at the music school there and then it was on to the China Con­ser­va­tory in Bei­jing, where I worked once again with the stu­dents of Pro­fes­sor Yi He.

3rd International Clarinet Festival in Lima, Peru

From Feb­ru­ary 18 to 22, 2013, I was one of the fea­tured artists of the 3rd In­ter­na­tional Clar­inet Fes­ti­val in Lima and Cusco, Peru, where I judged the First Na­tional Clar­inet Com­pe­ti­tion of Peru. The other fea­tured artists/judges were Gabor Varga (Hun­gary), Karel Dohnal (Czech Re­pub­lic), and Jean-Fran­cois Bescond (France). The fes­ti­val was or­ga­nized by Luis En­rique Var­gas Guevara, prin­ci­pal clar­inetist of the Na­tional Sym­phony Or­ches­tra in Lima, Peru. For more in­for­ma­tion, send email to info@​peruvianclarinet.​com see the Face­book Page, or see the web­site.

2012

The First Xativa International Clarinet Festival

From De­cem­ber 26 to 30, 2012, I was in Xa­tiva once again, but this time at the First Xa­tiva In­ter­na­tional Clar­inet Fes­ti­val, which also in­cluded piano lessons by my stel­lar pi­anist Rasa Vitkauskaite. I taught lessons, mas­ter­classes, and played a recital there in­clud­ing the Brahms Sonata No. 1 and Schu­mann In­ter­mezzo from FAE Sonata. For more in­for­ma­tion on the fes­ti­val in both Eng­lish and Span­ish, check out this Face­book page and this Face­book event or send email to the fes­ti­val here. Video and pic­tures from the event will be posted soon!

Tour of Hungary

From No­vem­ber 24 to 30, 2012, I toured Hun­gary play­ing con­certs with my won­der­ful pi­anist Rasa Vitkauskaite and teach­ing mas­ter­classes in Bu­dapest, Miskolc, and De­bre­cen. The con­certs and mas­ter­classes took place at the beau­ti­ful Liszt Acad­emy in Bu­dapest, the Bar­tok Con­ser­va­tory in Miskolc and the Uni­ver­sity of De­bre­cen. This was my first time to Hun­gary and it cer­tainly won't be my last! In Bu­dapest, we had the great honor of play­ing and teach­ing in the beau­ti­ful con­cert hall of the old build­ing at the Franz Liszt Academy, which now houses a Liszt Mu­seum and other or­ga­ni­za­tions ded­i­cated to the his­tory of Franz Liszt. Our con­cert pro­gram in Hun­gary in­cluded Prokofiev Sonata in D Major, Op. 94, Schu­mann Fan­tasi­es­tucke, Op. 73, Widor In­tro­duc­tion et Rondo, Op. 72, and Bassi Fan­tasy on themes from Verdi's "Rigoletto".

The stu­dents there were won­der­ful and the goulash was amaz­ing! Check out pic­tures on my Face­book page.

Physics Lecture at Harvard!

Iknew my physics de­gree from Har­vard would come in handy some day! Ac­tu­ally, I use my physics back­ground every day in my teach­ing and play­ing of the clar­inet, cham­ber music, con­duct­ing, record­ing and re­ally all as­pects of music mak­ing. So I was very ex­cited when I was re­cently in­vited to give a guest lec­ture at Har­vard on Mon­day, No­vem­ber 19, 2012 on the topic of mu­si­cal in­stru­ments and physics! The un­ex­pected in­vi­ta­tion came from world-renowned Pro­fes­sor Eric Mazur (Balka­n­ski Pro­fes­sor of Physics and Ap­plied Physics and Area Dean of Ap­plied Physics) and Pre­cep­tor Car­olann Koleci (for­merly Di­rec­tor of Physics Ed­u­ca­tion and As­sis­tant Pro­fes­sor of Physics at Worces­ter Poly­tech­nic In­sti­tute) who have de­vel­oped an in­no­v­a­tive new un­der­grad­u­ate course (AP50) to­gether using the Peer Instruction method that Mazur pi­o­neered start­ing in 1990 and now is used world­wide in many sci­ence disciplines.

In first-se­mes­ter AP50, there are no for­mal lec­tures and no tra­di­tional ex­am­i­na­tions. In­stead, in­tro­duc­tory physics con­cepts are mo­ti­vated and learned through three, one-month-long, team-based pro­jects: Rube Gold­berg Ma­chines, Mis­sion to Mars, and Mu­si­cal In­stru­ments. For an in­ter­est­ing blog-post on “Ap­plied Physics 50: Physics as a Foun­da­tion for Sci­ence” click here, and for an in­for­ma­tive story from the Har­vard Crim­son pub­lished Sep­tem­ber 5, 2012, check out Ap­plied Physics 50 Of­fers In­no­v­a­tive Teach­ing Style.

Every­thing went well and a great time was had by all! I re­ally brushed up on my Pow­er­Point skills at the same time. Thank you again to Prof. Mazur and Pre­cep­tor Koleci!

Audition Preparation Masterclass for Winds

On Thurs­day, Oc­to­ber 18, 2012 at 7:00 pm, I gave stu­dents in­sights into how to pre­pare for and take suc­cess­ful au­di­tions. The class was aimed at prepar­ing stu­dents to au­di­tion for col­lege, All-State, Dis­tricts, Mid­dle-Level Honor Band, or even school band seat­ing chal­lenges. I heard four great kids play­ing flute, sax­o­phone, and clar­inet. The school is founded run by its en­er­getic, tal­ented, ded­i­cated and gen­er­ally won­der­ful Di­rec­tor and flute teacher Tr­isha Craig.

It all took place at Music Mak­ers, 18 Lafayette Road, Suite 2, North Hamp­ton, New Hamp­shire 03862. For info and di­rec­tions to the school see the Face­book event here. To find out more about tak­ing music lessons there call Music Makers at 603-964-2950 or send a mes­sage via Face­book here.

Boston Conservatory Single Reed Symposium

It was nice to see all of you who joined me at the Boston Con­ser­va­tory Sin­gle Reed Symposium on Sun­day, Oc­to­ber 14, 2012. I gave a mas­ter­class fo­cus­ing on the De­bussy Première Rhapsodie and then played a short recital with pi­anist Rasa Vitkauskaite in con­junc­tion with a pre­sen­ta­tion by Van­doren, which is one of my spon­sors and a spon­sor of the fes­ti­val. Our pro­gram in­cluded Brahms Sonata in F Minor, Op. 120, No. 1 and Sar­gon Klez­Muzik. The two-day fes­ti­val was filled with mas­ter­classes, per­for­mances, ven­dor pre­sen­ta­tions, and ex­hibits for both sax­o­phone and clar­inet and a great time was had by all. Other artists who per­formed and taught at the fes­ti­val included Michael Lowenstern, Lee Livengood, Ken Radnofsky, Chien-Kwan Lin, Eric Hewitt, and Michael Norsworthy.

Xativa, Spain 2012

From July 8 to 14, 2012, I was back in beau­ti­ful Xa­tiva, Spain teach­ing at the 4º Curso In­ter­na­cional de Mu­sica Ciu­tat de Xàtiva. The fes­ti­val was a 7-day in­ten­sive event, lead by Fran Moral, founder of Saete­bis Music So­ci­ety, and once again, the clar­inet stu­dio was com­pletely full. Check out Fran's pic­tures here and my pic­tures here. Dur­ing the sum­mer, it is 37 or 38 de­grees Cel­sius nearly every day in Xàtiva, which is one of the hottest places in Spain! The stu­dents range in age from 14 to 50. For the lat­est scoop on past and fu­ture Xa­tiva fes­ti­vals, see the group on Facebook!

IWWF 2012 - July 15 to 22, 2012

From July 15 to 22, 2012, we held the 7th edi­tion of the In­ter­na­tional Wood­wind Fes­ti­val and all avail­able stu­dent slots were com­pletely full!! IWWF 2012 fac­ulty in­cluded Berlin Phil­har­monic Or­ches­tra Solo Clar­inetist Wen­zel Fuchs, for­mer Simon Bo­li­var Or­ches­tra prin­ci­pal clar­inetist Jorge Montilla, soloist and in­stru­ment maker Yuan Gao, Cyn­thia Doggett and yours truly. This year IWWF was held again in Pella, Iowa. The IWWF Young Artists Com­pe­ti­tion in­cluded cash and equip­ment prizes from spon­sors to­talling more than $2000 and was judged by our pres­ti­gious fac­ulty mem­bers. The First Prize win­ner was Saul Sanchez Zea from Mex­ico; the Sec­ond Prize win­ner was Micah Wright from the USA; and there were two Third Prize win­ners: Luis En­rique Var­gas Gue­vara of Peru, and Omar Ho of Canada. An­other first fea­tured at this years fes­ti­val was live stream­ing of mas­ter­classes and con­certs. For pho­tos of IWWF 2012 click here.

The fes­ti­val was packed full of lessons, mas­ter­classes, 5 fac­ulty con­certs, pi­anists, 2 stu­dent con­certs, the in­ter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tion and loads of fun times! I hope you can join us next year for IWWF 2013!

Great review

On April 2, 2012, The Boston Mu­si­cal Intelligencer just pub­lished a great re­view of my per­for­mance of De­bussy’s Première Rhapsodie at Sanders The­atre in Boston! Re­viewer Fred Bouchard wrote, “Clar­inet­tist Jonathan Cohler played like a Bird of Par­adise, in hushed syl­van calls and re­sponse and air­ing del­i­cate ac­celerando/ru­bato licks; his oc­ca­sional sostenuti hang se­duc­tively, dew­drops on a Venus fly­trap.” For the com­plete re­view click here.

Debussy Première Rhapsodie in Sanders Theatre

O n April 1, 2012, I had the plea­sure of play­ing Claude De­bussy’s Première Rhapsodie with the Boston Con­ser­va­tory Or­ches­tra, con­ducted by Bruce Hangen, at Har­vard’s Sanders The­atre. The Boston Mu­si­cal Intelligencer re­view of the con­cert said, “Clar­inet­tist Jonathan Cohler played like a Bird of Par­adise...”! For the com­plete re­view, click here.

The pro­gram also in­cluded pi­anist Max Levinson play­ing De­bussy’s Fan­tasie for Piano and Orchestra and sax­o­phon­ist Ken­neth Radnofsky play­ing De­bussy’s Rhap­sody for Alto Sax­o­phone and Orchestra, in ad­di­tion to per­for­mances by the or­ches­tra of Mozart’s Sym­phony No. 35 “Haffner” and Ravel’s Rap­sodie Espagnole. You can see the full pro­gram with pro­gram notes here.

The Première Rhap­sodie is orig­i­nally writ­ten for clar­inet and piano, and I recorded it with pi­anist Rasa Vitkauskaite on my CD Rhap­sodie Française.

China Tour 2012

From March 9 to 19, 2012, I was on tour in China play­ing con­certs and teach­ing mas­ter­classes at con­ser­va­to­ries in Tian­jin, Shenyang, and Bei­jing. I was also hon­ored to be the first for­eigner ever to teach mas­ter­classes for the Mil­i­tary Band of the Peo­ple's Lib­er­a­tion Army of China.​At the Tian­jin Con­ser­va­tory, I played a recital and taught mas­ter­classes for the stu­dents of Pro­fes­sors Xie and Zhang; at the Shenyang Con­ser­va­tory, I played a recital and taught mas­ter­classes for stu­dents of Pro­fes­sor Dong; and in Bei­jing at the China Con­ser­va­tory, I taught mas­ter­classes for the stu­dents of Pro­fes­sor He. Pic­tures to come soon here and on Facebook.

NEW VIDEO: Schumann Intermezzo

This piece is very spe­cial to me. Robert Schu­mann's music ex­udes such beauty and such ge­nius with so much con­ci­sion and power; it has be­come a very im­por­tant part of our reper­toire. My amaz­ing pi­anist Rasa Vitkauskaite and I often love to play this piece as an en­core. I hope you enjoy it!

Topping the Charts!

O n Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 6, 2012, my CD The Clar­inet Alone was right near the top in Indie Music Clas­si­cal (#10) and Clar­inet (#12) on Ama­zon! It moved up to #2 on the Mes­si­aen list and #1 on both the Per­sichetti list and the von Koch list! Moon­flow­ers, Baby! also moved up to #44 for Clar­inet and #36 for Vaughan Williams! At the same time, More Cohler on Clarinet is now in the top 100 for Schu­mann (mis­tak­enly shown as Eng­lish Horn!). Mes­si­aen Quar­tet for the End of Time have re­tained their sta­tus in their re­spec­tive lists for a long time now. Thank you to all my fans and friends for mak­ing this possible!

• Jonathan Cohler: The Clar­inet Alone
  
  
  • #10 Music > Indie Music > Classical
  • #12 Music > Clas­si­cal > In­stru­ments > Reeds & Winds > Clarinet
  • #1 Music > Clas­si­cal > Fea­tured Com­posers, A-Z > ( K ) > Koch, Er­land von
  • #1 Music > Clas­si­cal > Fea­tured Com­posers, A-Z > ( P ) > Per­sichetti, Vincent
  • #2 Music > Clas­si­cal > Fea­tured Com­posers, A-Z > ( M ) > Mes­si­aen, Olivier
    
• Moon­flow­ers, Baby!
  
  
  • #44 in Music > Clas­si­cal > In­stru­ments > Reeds&Winds > Clar­inet
  • #36 in Music > Clas­si­cal > His­tor­i­cal Pe­ri­ods > Mod­ern, 20th, & 21st Cen­tury > Com­posers > Vaughan Williams, Ralph
  • #2 Music > Clas­si­cal > Fea­tured Com­posers, A-Z > ( H ) > Honeg­ger, Arthur
    
    
• Olivier Mes­si­aen: Quar­tet for the End of Time
  
  
  • #29 Music > Clas­si­cal > Fea­tured Com­posers, A-Z > ( M ) > Mes­si­aen, Olivier
    
• More Cohler on Clarinet
  
  
  • #16 Music > Clas­si­cal > In­stru­ments > Reeds & Winds > Eng­lish Horn
    (This ap­pears to be a mis­la­bel­ing of the list by Amazon.
    We think that per­haps this list is sup­posed to be for music by Robert Schumann.)
    

Two New Videos

Happy New Year to all my friends and fans! Wish­ing you all a joy­ous and pros­per­ous 2012. Two new YouTube videos are out: "Black Dog" by Scott McAl­lis­ter and the Cop­land Clar­inet Con­certo. I hope these bring a smile to your face and make your heart beat a lit­tle faster!!

PREVIOUS NEWS

2011

Black Dog at Boston Conservatory’s New Theatre

O n De­cem­ber 8, 2011 I played Scott McAllister’s Black Dog with the Boston Con­ser­va­tory Wind En­sem­ble, con­ducted by Eric Hewitt at the school’s new The­atre in the brand new per­for­mance com­plex at the school. It was a great ex­pe­ri­ence work­ing with Eric and the wind en­sem­ble. Here is the video from the con­cert, so in case you missed the con­cert, you can watch in hi-fi­delity HD 720p at home through the magic of tech­nol­ogy and YouTube! If you are a Led Zeppelin fan, you'll enjoy it even more as the work is loosely based on themes from their song Black Dog (1971). The piece high­lights just about every­thing a clar­inet can do, with some of the fastest and wildest play­ing in the reper­toire, reach­ing from the clar­inet's low­est notes up in to the stratos­phere, wail­ing, cry­ing, sob­bing and re­joic­ing with some haunt­ingly beau­ti­ful melodies along the way.

I was also very ex­cited and hon­ored to play on this pro­gram, which was in honor of the 86th birth­day of one of Scott McAl­lis­ter's most in­flu­en­tial teacher's, Gun­ther Schuller, the Pulitzer Prize win­ning com­poser, con­duc­tor, for­mer Pres­i­dent of NEC, and for­mer Di­rec­tor of the Tan­gle­wood Music Cen­ter. Gun­ther was in at­ten­dance with smiles on for his 86th.

Hommage to Ben Armato at Copland House

O n No­vem­ber 20, 2011, I played in a spe­cial pri­vate per­for­mance in honor of Ben Armato at the Cop­land House in Cort­landt Manor, New York. My amaz­ing pi­anist Rasa Vitkauskaite and I per­formed two of our fa­vorite pieces in honor of Ben who has been a won­der­ful in­spi­ra­tion to so many clar­inetists and mu­si­cians in­clud­ing my­self: Widor In­tro­duc­tion et Rondo and Sar­gon Klez­Muzik. Also fea­tured on the per­for­mance were jazz clar­inetist Derek Bermel, New York Met clar­inetists Jes­sica Phillips and James Ognebene, Hong Kong Phil­har­monic prin­ci­pal clar­inetist An­drew Michael Simon, and Mor­rie Sherry. Ben Ar­mato played clar­inet in the New York Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera Or­ches­tra from 1953 to 1988. Ben has edited sev­eral books and in­vented sev­eral im­por­tant prod­ucts in the clar­inet world. He has been a ded­i­cated teacher to nu­mer­ous lucky clar­inet stu­dents for many decades. For more in­for­ma­tion on Ben and his work, click here. The event was or­ga­nized by Ben's close friend of 62 years, David Dworkin, and also fea­tured a pre­sen­ta­tion by Larry Guy, on be­half of the In­ter­na­tional Clar­inet As­so­ci­a­tion, be­stow­ing Ben with the ICA's high­est honor: the life­time mem­ber­ship. The whole event was a mov­ing and spe­cial ex­pe­ri­ence, and I am very hon­ored to have been a small part of it.

Concert on Nantucket

O n Au­gust 3, 2011, I played a recital on Nan­tucket with the won­der­ful com­poser, pi­anist, con­duc­tor and ed­u­ca­tor Simon Sar­gon. One of the pieces on the pro­gram was Simon's Klez­MusiK (lis­ten to a live record­ing here on my web­site), which he wrote for me nearly 20 years ago! The pro­gram also in­cluded Brahms Sonata No. 1, Sar­gon Deep Ellum Nights and Bassi Rigo­letto. The con­cert was held at the Cof­fin School. The au­di­ence and re­cep­tion were won­der­ful and the hos­pi­tal­ity of Har­ris and Esta Lee Stone was mag­nif­i­cent. What a treat it was to work with such a bril­liant com­poser as Simon Sar­gon.

Xativa, Spain 2011

From July 10 to 17, 2011, I was back in beau­ti­ful Xa­tiva, Spain teach­ing at the 3er Curso In­ter­na­cional de Mu­sica Ciu­tat de Xàtiva. The fes­ti­val was a 7-day in­ten­sive event lead by Fran Moral, founder of Saete­bis Music So­ci­ety. The fes­ti­val takes place in Xàtiva, Spain and is amaz­ing! The pic­tures from this year's fes­ti­val are here on Facebook. Dur­ing the sum­mer, it is 37 or 38 de­grees Cel­sius nearly every day in Xàtiva, which is one of the hottest places in Spain! There were 20 stu­dents in the clar­inet stu­dio this year, all won­der­ful. My col­league Rafa Al­bert Soler and I had a won­der­ful time work­ing with the stu­dents who ranged in age from 14 to 50.

My for­mer stu­dent Ana Catalina Ramirez was se­lected as Clar­inetist of the Year 2010 by CLAR­IPERU - El clar­inete en Latinoamerica

NEC Youth Philharmonic Orchestra Tour

F rom June 14 to 24, 2011, I was on tour with the Youth Phil­har­monic Orchestra of New Eng­land Con­ser­va­tory. I am the long­time As­sis­tant Con­duc­tor of the or­ches­tra. The or­ches­tra played fan­tas­tic con­certs in Prague, Bratislava and Vi­enna. The reper­toire in­cluded Mahler Sym­phony No. 9, which was per­formed to a packed house at the Musikverein in Vi­enna fol­lowed by a lengthy and well-de­served, but rare in Venna, stand­ing ova­tion! Other reper­toire for the tour in­cluded Dvo­rak Sym­phony No. 9 and Ravel La Valse. Check out my pic­tures of the tour on Face­book here, and for a great story de­scrib­ing the Musikverein ex­pe­ri­ence click here.

Korea/China Tour

F rom June 1 to 10, 2011 I was on tour to the far east teach­ing mas­ter­classes and play­ing con­certs in Seoul, Korea and Bei­jing, China. In Korea, I worked with stu­dents of Im Soo Lee, Jeong Min Song, and Dongjin Kim. In Bei­jing, I worked with stu­dents of Fan Lei at the Cen­tral Conservatory. As usual the stu­dents were amaz­ing and the food was great! Check out the pic­tures on here.

Copland Concerto with Bach Society Orchestra

O n Fri­day, April 22, 2011, I played the Cop­land Con­certo with the Har­vard Bach So­ci­ety Orchestra. It was their final con­cert of the sea­son, the final con­cert of two-year Music Di­rec­tor Yuga Cohler (who is a close re­la­tion of mine) and our first con­cert to­gether with Yuga on the podium!

It was a very spe­cial event for me and Yuga, and it couldn't have turned out any bet­ter. Many dear friends, stu­dents and fam­ily were all in at­ten­dance to share this once-in-a-life­time mo­ment, and we were very touched and thank­ful to have so much won­der­ful sup­port. For pic­tures of the event, check out my Face­book page here, and you can see the per­for­mance by just click­ing on the video above.

2010

European Clarinet Festival & Competition

A major new clar­inet com­pe­ti­tion and fes­ti­val took place in Ko­r­trijk, Bel­gium from Oc­to­ber 30 to No­vem­ber 7, 2010! I taught mas­ter­classes, played the Weber Quin­tet with the Ciurlio­nis Quar­tet from Lithua­nia, and judged the huge new in­ter­na­tional com­pe­ti­tion there on a very pres­ti­gious panel in­clud­ing my­self, Karl Leis­ter, Stan­ley Drucker, Koichi Hamanaka, Eddy Vanoost­huyse, An­to­nio Saoite, Fan Lei, Robert Spring, Valde­mar Ro­driguez, Mat­tias Müller, and James Gille­spie. As part of the same event, the Eu­ro­pean Clar­inet As­so­ci­a­tion was of­fi­cially formed, and the first Eu­ro­pean Clar­inet Fes­ti­val took place from No­vem­ber 4 to 7, 2010. Click here for fes­ti­val and com­pe­ti­tion in­for­ma­tion.

The jury and prizes of­fered were the largest of any clar­inet com­pe­ti­tion in the world. It is planned to hap­pen every two years going for­ward. I had a great time drink­ing beer and shar­ing sto­ries with clar­inet leg­ends Karl Leis­ter and Stan­ley Drucker and the other panel mem­bers. The en­tire event was or­ga­nized by Eddy Vanoost­huyse and was an amaz­ing ex­pe­ri­ence that I will never for­get. Pic­tures com­ing soon.

Hommage à Schumann

O n Fri­day, Oc­to­ber 15, 2010 we had an ex­cit­ing evening fea­tur­ing works of Robert & Clara SCHU­MANN, BRAHMS, LISZT, and SCHU­BERT per­formed by yours truly, so­prano Jayne West, and pi­anists Robert Mer­feld and Rasa Vitkauskaite at Pick­man Hall, Longy School of Music. Pro­gram de­tails here. Stay tuned for video and audio clips from the concert.

MusicWeb International Recording of the Month

M oon­flow­ers, Baby! was cho­sen as Record­ing of the Month in Oc­to­ber 2010 by Mu­sicWeb In­ter­na­tional. To see the full re­view, click here. The re­viewer said, "The per­for­mance is stunning...​with charm and deep inner feeling...​Cohler plays as if he owned the piece, with deep un­der­stand­ing and supreme mu­si­cal­ity. 'An ab­solute knock­out record­ing', as the com­poser him­self de­clared...I can­not find any weak­ness in this disc...​from head to toes, this is prob­a­bly the most sat­is­fy­ing clar­inet disc I've heard in quite a time...​Sensitive, sub­tle, beau­ti­ful, re­fined - a moon­flower, baby!"

ClarinetFest, Austin

F rom July 21 to July 25, 2010, I was in Austin, Texas at the an­nual mega-gath­er­ing of clar­inetists from all over the world, Clar­inet­Fest 2010. I played the Prokofiev Sonata in D Major, Op. 94 there with Co­lette Valen­tine in Mc­Cul­lough The­atre, which is in the Per­form­ing Arts Center at Uni­ver­sity of Texas, Austin. I had a great time vis­it­ing with friends from the world over in­clud­ing my old pal Michael Drap­kin from Tan­gle­wood days, who hosted a won­der­ful party at his lovely new home, and my good friend from Tai­wan, Bill Chen of the Taipei Sym­phony. Bill brought a large en­tourage of stu­dents to the event, and I gave a spe­cial mas­ter­class just for them.

Xativa, Spain

I taught and con­ducted the or­ches­tra at the 2° Curso In­ter­na­cional de Mu­sica Ciu­tat de Xàtiva from July 4 to 10, 2010. The fes­ti­val is a 7-day in­ten­sive event lead by Fran Moral & Jordi Fuster, founders of Saete­bis Music So­ci­ety. The fes­ti­val takes place in Xàtiva, Spain and it was amaz­ing! I posted pic­tures on Face­book here. I'll choose the best ones and post them here soon. It was 37 or 38 de­grees every day in Xàtiva, which is one of the hottest places in Spain! I did get to visit the cas­tle at the top of the hill and it was beau­ti­ful! I con­ducted the or­ches­tra there in a per­for­mance of Dvo­rak Sym­phony No. 9 "From the New World". The fes­ti­val also in­cluded in­cluded per­for­mances by the sax­o­phone en­sem­ble, clar­inet en­sem­ble, per­cus­sion en­sem­ble, string quar­tet, and piano fla­menco!! Great per­for­mances all around! And the clar­inet stu­dents were amaz­ing! I will miss Xàtiva!

IWWF 2010, Pella, Iowa

T he In­ter­na­tional Wood­wind Fes­ti­val 2010 in Pella, Iowa took place from June 20 to 27! IWWF this year fea­tured renowned Bel­gian soloist and teacher Eddy Vanoosthuyse, Cen­tral Col­lege pro­fes­sor of clar­inet Cyn­thia Doggett, along with yours truly Jonathan Cohler, as well as pi­anists Rasa Vitkauskaite, and Shizue Sano.

Oklahoma!

O n June 17, 2010, I per­formed at the 35th An­nual Uni­ver­sity of Ok­la­homa Clar­inet Symposium in June. I played a recital with my amaz­ing pi­anist Rasa Vitkauskaite. The pro­gram in­cluded Franck Sonata in A Major, Sar­gon Deep Ellum Nights, and Widor In­tro­duc­tion et Rondo, Op. 72.

Mexico

From March 22 to 25, 2010, I per­formed and taught at the 1er En­cuen­tro de Clar­inete 2010 in March at the Na­tional Con­ser­va­tory of Music in Mex­ico City, Mex­ico. The pro­gram for my recital was: As usual my pi­anist was the won­der­ful Rasa Vitkauskaite! Click on the poster to the left for more in­for­ma­tion on the fes­ti­val. The salsa danc­ing in Mex­ico City was great!

2009

Messiaen with Claremonts

A fter Cara­cas, I headed straight out to Logan, Utah where I played a per­for­mance of the Mes­saien Quar­tet for the End of Time and the Beethoven Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 11 with the renowned Clare­mont Trio on the con­cert se­ries of the Cham­ber Music So­ci­ety of Logan. The con­cert was at 7:30pm on No­vem­ber 18, 2009 in the Manon Caine Rus­sell Kathryn Caine Wan­lass Per­for­mance Hall on the cam­pus of Utah State University.

Simon Bolivar Orchestra

F rom No­vem­ber 1 to No­vem­ber 15, 2009 I was in Cara­cas, Venezuela con­duct­ing the Simon Bo­li­var Orchestra, play­ing a recital with Rasa Vitkauskaite, and per­form­ing the Mor­ton Gould De­riva­tions with the Simon Bo­li­var Big Band in honor of Benny Good­man's 100th birth­day.

The or­ches­tra con­cert in­cluded Beethoven Sym­phony No. 6, Aris­mendi Con­certo, Ravel La Valse, and Corigliano Con­certo, and it took place on Sat­ur­day, No­vem­ber 7 at 5:00pm in Simon Bo­li­var Hall at the Cen­tro de Acción So­cial por la Música in Cara­cas. The Face­book event page is HERE.

Our recital on Mon­day, No­vem­ber 9 at 6:30pm in Con­cert Hall No. 2 of the Cen­tro de Acción So­cial por la Música in Cara­cas in­cluded Schu­mann Sonata No. 1 in A Minor, Op. 105, Mar­t­inu Sonatina, Bern­stein Sonata, and Bassi Rigo­letto. The Face­book event page is HERE.

The Mor­ton Gould per­for­mance was on Sun­day, No­vem­ber 8 at 5:00pm at the Hum­boldt Cul­tural As­so­ci­a­tion in Cara­cas.

New YouTube Videos

C heck out my new videos on YouTube! Bliss Pas­toral • D'Rivera Con­tradanza • Brahms Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 120, No. 2 1st move­ment • Bern­stein Sonata 1st move­ment, 2nd move­ment • Guastavino Rosita Igle­sias

Brahms, Beethoven, and Dohnanyi

I  have just pub­lished a few re­cent ar­ti­cles of mine on the web. You are wel­come and in­vited to read them! Al­though they are pub­lished as "Notes" at­tached to my Face­book "Fan Page", you CAN read them with­out being a mem­ber of Facebook. If you would like to add com­ments to those pages (which are al­ways wel­come!), how­ever, you must be a mem­ber and logged into Face­book. These three ar­ti­cles come from my re­cent CD Jonathan Cohler & Clare­mont Trio:

• BEETHOVEN Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 11
• BRAHMS Trio in A Minor, Op. 114
• DOHNANYI Sex­tet in C Major, Op. 37

I hope you enjoy them and would cer­tainly ap­pre­ci­ate any feed­back that you may have!

Romanza

O ur new CD Ro­manza should be back from the fac­tory by the end of April. Stay tuned!

Taiyuan, China

F rom Au­gust 17 to 25, 2009 we were in China, where I was one of the fea­tured artists at the In­ter­na­tional Clar­inet and Sax­o­phone Festival in Taiyuan, play­ing the same recital with Rasa and teach­ing mas­ter­classes. We vis­ited an an­cient city an hour away from Taiyuan in Shanxi Province and then in Bei­jing, we saw Tianan­men Square, The Great Wall (at Badal­ing), and the For­bid­den City. The stu­dents in China are amaz­ing! We look for­ward to our next trip back there.

ClarinetFest, Porto

O n Au­gust 13, 2009 at 2:30pm, Rasa Vitkauskaite and I played a recital at the beau­ti­ful Casa da Mu­sica in Porto as part of the In­ter­na­tional Clar­inet As­so­ci­a­tion's ClarinetFest. The pro­gram in­cluded Schu­mann Sonata in A Minor, Op. 105 (from our com­ing CD Ro­manza), Wil­son Liq­uid Ebony, Mes­sager Solo de Con­cours (from our award-win­ning CD Rhap­sodie Fran­caise), Arnold Sonatina, and Lovreglio Fan­tasy on Themes from "La Traviata". The Face­book event is here. Then at 9:30am on Au­gust 14, I taught an open mas­ter­class at the Con­ser­va­tory of Music in Porto. I also judged the final round of the In­ter­na­tional Clar­inet As­so­ci­a­tion's Young Artist Competition.

Luck­ily, we had a lit­tle bit of free time, so we were able to check out the beaches in Es­pinho and Matosinho where we also ate some great seafood!

American Record Guide

I n the July-Au­gust 2009 issue of Amer­i­can Record Guide, there was a stel­lar re­view of our CD Jonathan Cohler & Clare­mont Trio.

BBC Music

O ur CD Jonathan Cohler & Clare­mont Trio was awarded the BBC Music CHOICE dis­tinc­tion in the May 2009 issue of BBC Music Magazine, the world's best-sell­ing clas­si­cal music mag­a­zine. Giv­ing the CD a top rat­ing of 5-stars for Per­for­mance, re­viewer An­thony Bur­ton lauded our:

Minnesota Public Radio

T he CD was also re­cently fea­tured on Min­nesota Pub­lic Radio's Clas­si­cal Tracks in a story by Julie Amacher. Min­nesota Pub­lic Radio® is one of the na­tion's pre­mier pub­lic radio or­ga­ni­za­tions. With head­quar­ters in the heart of down­town St. Paul, Min­nesota Pub­lic Radio op­er­ates a re­gional net­work of 38 sta­tions, cov­er­ing Min­nesota and parts of Wis­con­sin, the Dako­tas, Michi­gan, Iowa and Idaho. With 850,000 lis­ten­ers each week, it has the largest au­di­ence of any re­gional pub­lic radio net­work.

For more info on the fab­u­lous Clare­mont Trio see their web­site at http://​claremonttrio.​com/​.

The Clarinet Magazine

T he Clar­inet Magazine of the In­ter­na­tional Clar­inet Association just pub­lished a great re­view of our CD Rhap­sodie Fran­caise!! Here are some ex­cerpts from the re­view:

WNED (Buffalo/Toronto)

O ur CD Rhap­sodie Francaise was cho­sen for Clas­si­cal 94.5 WNED (Buf­falo/Toronto) 2008 "Best of the Year" clas­si­cal CDs. Pro­gram host Peter Hall se­lected Rhap­sodie as one of only three CDs as his choices for the "Best of the Year". Al­to­gether the hosts and pro­duc­ers chose a total of 30 CDs, each choos­ing just two or three.

Some of the other artists cho­sen for the honor in­clude Yo-Yo Ma, Lu­ciano Pavarotti, He­lene Gri­maud, Gus­tavo Du­damel with the Simon Bo­li­var Or­ches­tra, Clau­dio Ab­bado with the Lon­don Sym­phony Or­ches­tra, Pierre Fournier, Leonid Kogan, Mstislav Ros­tropovitch, Emil Gilels, and James Galway.

Fanfare Magazine

T he July/Au­gust 2009 issue of Fan­fare Magazine con­tains a nice rec­om­men­da­tion of my record­ing of the Hin­demith Sonata and Honeg­ger Sonatina record­ings on Moon­flow­ers, Baby! as their pre­ferred record­ings of the works! Check out the full Fan­fare re­view here in their on­line archives (sub­scrip­tion required).

Boston Conservatory Recital

A t the end of March 2009, Rasa and I re­turned from a won­der­ful tour of Asia where we played con­certs in Bei­jing, Shi­ji­azhuang, Shang­hai and Tokyo. Our fol­low­ing recital at Seully Hall in Boston in­cluded much of the music that we played on tour plus some other pieces. The con­cert also in­cluded two pieces from our CD Rhap­sodie Francaise which just re­ceived a great write-up in the March/April issue of Fan­fare Magazine(sub­scrip­tion re­quired).

 

Asia Tour

O ur March 12-22, 2009 Tour of Asia was a big suc­cess!! Thank you to all of our won­der­ful spon­sors for mak­ing this tour pos­si­ble! Here is more info on the tour sched­ule and reper­toire too. For Face­book users, check out the Face­book event page for it here.

This is the tour poster made our top spon­sor Gao's Royal Mu­si­cal Col­lec­tion. Hope you like it!.

Longy Recital

On Sun­day, Feb­ru­ary 1, 2009 at 7pm, I played a recital with Rasa Vitkauskaite in Pick­man Hall at The Longy School. Here is a video clip of one of our fa­vorite pieces from the con­cert! For more info, check out the Face­book event page here. We also played live on WGBH radio on Thurs­day, Jan­u­ary 29, 2009 at 3pm on the show Clas­si­cal Per­for­mances hosted by Richard Knisely. If you missed, the show, you can lis­ten to it here.

NEW CD with Claremont Trio!

M y new CD Jonathan Cohler & Clare­mont Trio (On­gaku 024-122) is out! You can lis­ten to sound clips on the On­gaku Records web­site and place or­ders for the disc now! This CD was made in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the renowned Clare­mont Trio and in­cludes the Brahms and Beethoven trios and the Dohnanyi Sex­tet with vi­o­list Mai Mo­to­buchi (of the Bor­romeo Quar­tet) and hor­nist James Som­merville (of the Boston Sym­phony Or­ches­tra).

 

2008

Simon Bolivar Symphonic Band

F rom De­cem­ber 2 to 6, 2008, I spent an ex­cit­ing week con­duct­ing the Simon Bo­li­var Sym­phonic Band, and teach­ing mas­ter­classes for the Clar­inet Acad­emy of Simon Bo­li­var Uni­ver­sity. With the band we did an ex­hil­i­rat­ing per­for­mance of Bern­stein's Slava!, Ives' Vari­a­tions on America, Cop­land's El Salon Mexico, John Williams' Star Wars Trilogy, Holst's Mars and Jupiter from The Planets, and Rim­sky-Ko­r­sakov's Capric­cio Espagnol. The al­ready short re­hearsal sched­ule of 5 days, was short­ened to 4 when air­plane de­lays caused me to miss my con­nec­tions to Cara­cas! De­spite that and the huge dif­fi­culty of the pro­gram, the group gave a stel­lar per­for­mance! The mu­si­cal spirit and tal­ent in Venezuela is just elec­tri­fy­ing. I'll def­i­nitely be headed back there again soon!!

NEW CD Rhapsodie Française

M y CD, Rhap­sodie Française, is out, and it in­cludes most of the core reper­toire of the "French school." The pi­anist on the CD is an amaz­ing young mul­ti­ple prize win­ning Lithuan­ian pi­anist named Rasa Vitkauskaite. She and I are plan­ning to make sev­eral more CDs in the com­ing sea­sons. It is al­ready avail­able for or­ders on the On­gaku Records web­site as well as from Ama­zon and CD Baby among oth­ers.

NEW Live Audio

I posted MP3's of sev­eral of my re­cent live per­for­mances on my Record­ings page. Click here or ac­cess "Record­ings" in the menu above.

Iowa Clarinet Day

I n Sep­tem­ber 2008, I was the fea­tured artist at the Iowa Clar­inet Day 2008. It was my first trip to Iowa and I had a great time! Pi­anist Rasa Vitkauskaite joined me in a recital there on Sep­tem­ber 6, and I also taught sev­eral mas­ter­classes at both Drake University in Des Moines and Cen­tral College in Pella. Vis­it­ing Pella was like walk­ing on a movie set! What a beau­ti­ful place, and the stu­dents were won­der­ful. Thanks go to Cyn­thia Doggett and Clarence Padilla for or­ga­niz­ing such a won­der­ful event!!

ClarinetFest, Kansas City

I n July 2008, I per­formed a duo recital with Howard Klug at the Clar­inet­Fest in Kansas City, Mis­souri. We pre­miered sev­eral new works for two clar­inets and piano in var­i­ous com­bi­na­tions. The new works in­cluded a great new duo by Simon Sar­gon called "Birds of a Feather.." for two A clar­inets. Two other pre­mieres in­cluded Don Freund Rite Now! and Michael Kibbe Shiva Dances (both for clar­inet, bass clar­inet and piano). It was a great plea­sure to col­lab­o­rate once again with renowned ped­a­gogue and per­former Howard Klug who played some amaz­ing bass clar­inet! See pics here

Domaine Forget

I n June 2008, I taught and per­formed at the beau­ti­ful Do­maine For­get fes­ti­val in St. Irenée, Que­bec. The stu­dents there were won­der­ful, the fes­ti­val was ex­pertly man­aged and or­ga­nized and all of my col­leagues were world class! I spent a won­der­ful week teach­ing along side Marie Pi­card and Lawrie Bloom. While there I also had the great op­por­tu­nity to per­form Stock­hausen In Freundschaft on a spe­cial Stock­hausen memo­r­ial con­cert. That was a spe­cial treat. My last night there I had the great priv­i­lege of hear­ing the phe­nom­e­nal pi­anist Gabriela Montero play sev­eral breath­tak­ingly beau­ti­ful and amaz­ing im­pro­vi­sa­tions based on themes of­fered from the au­di­ence. Wow! I will re­mem­ber that for­ever. Lawrie, Marie and I had a great time work­ing to­gether both in teach­ing clar­inet and win­ning at ping pong! And Marie Pi­card was the most gra­cious host ever!

2007

Simon Bolivar Symphonic Band

I n No­vem­ber 2007, I was in Cara­cas, Venezuela for 10 days. While there I con­ducted a won­der­ful per­for­mance of the Simon Bo­li­var Sym­phonic Band play­ing Respighi Pines of Rome and Shostakovich Sym­phony No. 5 Finale, as well as the Rim­sky-Ko­r­sakov Clar­inet Concerto with soloist Jorge Mon­tilla and sev­eral other works. I also taught mas­ter­classes every day as part of the new Mas­ters De­gree pro­gram in clar­inet of the Uni­ver­si­dad Simon Bo­li­var. Pic­tures of the band, soloists, me, the stu­dents, my mas­ter­classes and the danc­ing af­ter­wards are all here!

Longy Recital

O n Oc­to­ber 7, 2007, I played a fac­ulty recital at the Longy School of Music. Join­ing me on the pro­gram was a fab­u­lous young piano trio with Ju­dith Lee (vi­o­lin), Tess Remy-Schu­macher (cello) and Christo­pher Coo­ley (piano). A few pic­tures from the re­cep­tion after the con­cert are here.

Campos do Jordao

I n July 2007, I taught and per­formed at the In­ter­na­tional Win­ter Fes­ti­val of Cam­pos do Jordao, Brazil where the weather was cooler than last year (some­times as low as 32 de­grees F at night) but when it was beau­ti­ful and sunny in the day time, it was more like ~75 de­grees F. I had six won­der­ful fel­low­ship stu­dents there from Brazil, Venezuela, Ar­gentina and Costa Rica. I con­ducted a per­for­mance of the Dvo­rak Ser­e­nade for Winds, Op. 44. Here are the 200+ pic­tures I took while there.

ClarinetFest, Vancouver

C lar­inet­Fest 2007 took place in Van­cou­ver, Canada from July 4 to 8 on the cam­pus of the Uni­ver­sity of British Columbia. A good time was had by all. I played a recital there in the beau­ti­ful Chan Cen­tre for the Per­form­ing Arts and taught a mu­si­cal in­ter­pre­ta­tion mas­ter­class fea­tur­ing some of the con­tes­tants (and win­ners!) of the or­ches­tral and solo com­pe­ti­tions.

YPO China Tour

O n June 30, 2007, I re­turned from a two-and-a-half-week tour of China with the Youth Phil­har­monic Or­ches­tra of NEC. As al­ways, this YPO tour was a thrilling ex­pe­ri­ence for all in­volved. The or­ches­tra played 12 con­certs in 14 days in 10 cities! We vis­ited Bei­jing, Shichi­azhuang, Tian­jin, Shenyang, An­shan, Yingkou, Chongqing, Suzhou, Ningbo, and Shang­hai. I took more than 600 pic­tures of the tour, so you can see them and make prints from snapfish.​com by click­ing here.

IWWF 2007

I WWF 2007 was a blast from May 29 to June 10 at the Boston Con­ser­va­tory. Check out this live per­for­mance of the Ponchielli Il Convegno with me and Jes­sica Phillips (New York Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera). To view and get prints of pic­tures from IWWF 2007 click here for my photos or click here for Kath­leen's photos.

The clar­inet fac­ulty in­cluded yours truly, Valde­mar Ro­driguez (Simon Bo­li­var Or­ches­tra), Jes­sica Philipps (New York Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera), Robert Spring (soloist), and Michael Nor­swor­thy (soloist, Boston Con­ser­va­tory). We also had the bril­liant, young Clare­mont Trio in res­i­dence and three fab­u­lous pi­anists: Shizue Sano, Eliko Aka­hori, and Yoko Kida.

Here's a live per­for­mance of me with the Clare­mont Trio play­ing the sixth Bruch piece! From left to right, that's Julie Bruskin (cello), Emily Bruskin (vi­o­lin), me, and Donna Kwong (piano).

Here's a live per­for­mance of me with the Clare­mont Trio play­ing the third move­ment of Beethoven Trio, Op. 11!

Paquito D'Rivera

L isten to this live record­ing of me and Paquito D'Rivera play­ing his piece Con­tradanza from Paquito's Aires Trop­i­cales Suite. Alon Yav­nai is the for­mi­da­ble pi­anist. See if you can tell which one is Paquito and which one is me!

Fischoff Competition 2007

I n May 2007, I took seven groups that I coach to com­pete in both the Ju­nior and Se­nior Di­vi­sions of the Fischoff Competition. All seven made the Quar­ter­fi­nals, three made the Semi­fi­nals and one of my groups, At­tacca Quar­tet, won 3rd Prize in the Ju­nior Di­vi­sion! For pic­tures of the trip, click here.

 

Simon Bolivar Orchestra

I n April 2007, I had an won­der­ful time in Cara­cas con­duct­ing the Simon Bo­li­var Or­ches­tra! We did Bern­stein's West Side Story Suite of Sym­phonic Dances to cel­e­brate the 50th an­niver­sary of that rev­o­lu­tion­ary, one-of-a-kind mu­si­cal. Pic­tures here. Video clips to come. Stay tuned!

Lisbon, Portugal

A t the be­gin­ning of March 2007, I was fea­tured at the 10th In­ter­na­tional Clar­inet Fes­ti­val of Lis­bon. The fes­ti­val was held in a beau­ti­ful palace, so I guess we got the "royal" treat­ment! As al­ways, the seafood was de­li­cious, and al­though the weather was un­sea­son­ably cold the per­for­mances by artists from all over the world were won­der­ful. I got a chance to col­lab­o­rate with the su­perb Lis­bon Clar­inet Quartet on "Aires Trop­i­cales" by Paquito D'Rivera and with Jes­sica Phillips of the New York Met­ro­pol­i­tan Opera or­ches­tra (and a for­mer stu­dent) on "Il Cov­egno" by Amil­care Ponchielli. My won­der­ful pi­anist was Aniko Ha­rangi. Pic­tures from Lisbon

Shanghai

I n Feb­ru­ary 2007, Shang­hai was an eye-opener once again. The rate of con­struc­tion and growth in that city and at the Con­ser­va­tory is sim­ply phe­nom­e­nal. The clar­inet stu­dents there are uni­formly ex­cel­lent, and as al­ways the food is de­lec­table and plen­ti­ful. Mas­ter­classes al­most every day plus re­hearsals and a recital made for a busy time. But I was very happy to play to­gether with my for­mer stu­dent Izumi Fu­jiyama who has de­vel­oped into first-rate pro­fes­sional. My ex­cel­lent pi­anist was Xie Beni. Pic­tures from Shanghai

Texas All-State Orchestra

I n Jan­u­ary 2007, I had a trans­for­ma­tional ex­pe­ri­ence con­duct­ing the Texas All-State Or­ches­tra in an in­cred­i­ble per­for­mance of Dvo­rak Carneval Overture and Bar­tok Con­certo for Orchestra. What great peo­ple and what un­bri­dled en­ergy and tal­ent! That was my first ex­pe­ri­ence with a stand­ing ova­tion fol­low­ing the over­ture!

2006

Campos do Jordao

S ee my pho­tos from the 2006 Fes­ti­val In­ter­na­cional de In­verno de Cam­pos do Jordão in Brazil. I was there for a very ex­cit­ing three weeks in July of mas­ter­classes, con­duct­ing and con­certs. I played the Mozart Con­certo with the or­ches­tra from Santo André and the Mozart Quin­tet as well as the Mar­t­inu Nonet.

 

The Enterprise

R ead the great story from The En­ter­prise on Sun­day, April 23, 2006 here.

Simon Bolivar Orchestra

I n Jan­u­ary 2006, I was in Cara­cas, Venezuela, where I con­ducted Shostakovich Sym­phony No. 5 with the Orquesta Sin­fon­ica Simon Bo­li­var. Wow what an or­ches­tra! The mu­si­cal spirit in Venezuela is ab­solutely in­cred­i­ble. I also played a recital and taught sev­eral mas­ter­classes there.

2005

ClarinetFest, Tama, Tokyo

I n sum­mer 2005, I was in Japan and Tai­wan where it was re­ally hot! From July 16 to July 24, I was in Tama, Tokyo at the Clar­inet­Fest and from July 30 to Au­gust 5, I was in Taipei at The 2nd In­ter­na­tional Clar­inet Fes­ti­val of Tai­wan where I played the Cop­land Con­certo with the Ever­green Sym­phony Or­ches­tra at the Na­tional Con­cert Hall of Tai­wan, a gor­geous hall.

YPO Venezuela Tour

I n June 2005, I went on a tour of Venezuela and Brazil with the Youth Phil­har­monic Or­ches­tra of New Eng­land Con­ser­va­tory.

IWWF 2005

T he 2005 In­ter­na­tional Wood­wind Festival from May 31 to June 12 in Boston at The Boston Con­ser­va­tory was a big suc­cess. You can see pic­tures from the fes­ti­val too.

The Rite of Spring

C heck out the video clip here from the Brock­ton Sym­phony Orchestra per­for­mance of the Rite of Spring in spring 2005 at Jor­dan Hall!

Lisbon, Portugal

I n March 2005, I was in Lis­bon, Portugal.where the cod fish was great, and the peo­ple were even bet­ter! While there I per­formed and taught as part of the 8th In­ter­na­tional Clar­inet En­counter of Lis­bon.

2004

Caracas, Venezuela

I n No­vem­ber 2004, I was in Cara­cas, Venezuela where I per­formed and taught at the 6th Fes­ti­val de Jóvenes Clar­inetis­tas Vene­zolanos.

Argentina and China

D uring the sum­mer of 2004, I spent a week in Ar­gentina and two weeks in China play­ing con­certs, teach­ing, and con­duct­ing in Rosario, Buenos Aires, Yan­tai, and Changchun.
Pic­tures from Buenos Aires.
Pic­tures from fes­ti­val in Yantai.
Pic­tures from fes­ti­val in Changchun, China.

The site is up­dated reg­u­larly so stop by again soon!

Best regards,
Jonathan Cohler