James Cohn (February 12, 1928 – June 12, 2021) was a

Newark Newark most commonly refers to: * Newark, New Jersey, city in the United States * Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey; a major air hub in the New York metropolitan area Newark may also refer to: Places Canada * Niagara-on-the ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

-born American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

. After taking violin and piano lessons in his native town, he studied composition with

Roy Harris Roy Ellsworth Harris (February 12, 1898 – October 1, 1979) was an American composer. He wrote music on American subjects, and is best known for his Symphony No. 3. Life Harris was born in Chandler, Oklahoma on February 12, 1898. His ancestry ...

Wayne Barlow Wayne Brewster Barlow (b. Elyria, Ohio, September 6, 1912; d. Rochester, NY, December 17, 1996) was an American composer of classical music. He was also a professor of music, organist, and choir director. Life and career Barlow received bachelo ...

and

Bernard Wagenaar Bernard Wagenaar (July 18, 1894 – May 19, 1971) was a Dutch-American composer, conductor and violinist. Wagenaar was born in Arnhem. He studied at Utrecht University before starting his career as a teacher and conductor in 1914. He moved to ...

, and majored in Composition at

Juilliard The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most elit ...

, graduating in 1950. He wrote solo, chamber, choral and orchestral works, among them 3 string quartets, 5 piano sonatas and 8 symphonies. He was awarded a Queen Elisabeth of Belgium Prize for his Symphony No. 2 (premiered at Brussels) and an A.I.D.E.M. prize for his Symphony No. 4 (premiered in Florence at the Maggio Musicale). His Symphony No. 3 and Variations on "The Wayfaring Stranger" were premiered by the

Detroit Symphony Orchestra The Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) is an American orchestra based in Detroit, Michigan. Its primary performance venue is Orchestra Hall at the Max M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit's Midtown neighborhood. Jader Bignamini is the current music d ...

under

Paul Paray Paul Marie-Adolphe Charles Paray () (24 May 1886 – 10 October 1979) was a French conductor, organist and composer. He was the resident conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 1952 until 1963. Early life and education Paul Paray was ...

. The

Detroit Free Press The ''Detroit Free Press'' is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, US. The Sunday edition is titled the ''Sunday Free Press''. It is sometimes referred to as the Freep (reflected in the paper's web address, www.freep.com). It primari ...

observed in the Symphony No. 3 "an economy of means . . . but no yielding of inventiveness or imaginative composition. Indeed, the work throughout is marked strongly by individuality, and comes as a refreshing experience in modern music." Among his earlier works (1946, preceding the 1948 second symphony) is a concertino for

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

and

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

. Cohn often quoted popular tunes in many of his works, such as "Homage" (1959), based on

The Star-Spangled Banner "The Star-Spangled Banner" is the national anthem of the United States. The lyrics come from the "Defence of Fort M'Henry", a poem written on September 14, 1814, by 35-year-old lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key after witnessing the b ...

, and "A Song of the Waters," Op. 53 (1976), a

tone poem A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term ''T ...

featuring variations on Shenandoah.James Cohn orchestral works
/ref> In 1966 he composed a three-movement Concerto for

Concertina A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It consists of expanding and contracting bellows, with buttons (or keys) usually on both ends, unlike accordion buttons, which are on the front. The ...

and Strings, as his Op. 44. In 2008 his 2nd and 7th symphonies were issued on

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then rele ...

by the

Naxos Naxos (; el, Νάξος, ) is a Greek island and the largest of the Cyclades. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture. The island is famous as a source of emery, a rock rich in corundum, which until modern times was one of the best abr ...

label. In 2012 his 3rd, 4th and 8th symphonies, recorded by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kirk Trevor, were published on

by the MSR (Musicians Showcase Recordings) label.

References

External links

Interview with James Cohn
October, 1987

SAI Composers Bureau, retrieved 2013-03-12

MSR CD, retrieved 2013-03-12

composer webpage, retrieved 2013-03-12 1928 births 2021 deaths Juilliard School alumni American male classical composers American classical composers Composers for concertina 20th-century classical composers Musicians from Newark, New Jersey 20th-century American composers Classical musicians from New York (state) Classical musicians from New Jersey 20th-century American male musicians {{US-composer-20thC-stub