Arthur Fagen, conductor
Arnaldo Cohen, piano

Repertoire
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor,
Op. 18 (1901)
Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet (Fantasy-Overture)
(1869, rev. 1888)
Liszt: Les préludes, S.97 (1855)

About the Artists

Arthur Fagen (conductor)

Music Director of the Atlanta Opera since 2010, Arthur Fagen is in great demand as a conductor of symphony and opera in Europe, Asia, South America and the United States. He is a regular guest at the most prestigious opera houses, concert halls, and music festivals at home and abroad.

Mr. Fagen has an opera repertory of more than 75 works. He has served as Principal Conductor in Kassel and Brunswick, as Chief Conductor of the Flanders Opera of Antwerp and Ghent, as Music Director of the Queens Symphony Orchestra and a member of the conducting staff of the Chicago LyricOpera. In 2002/2007 Mr. Fagen was the Music Director of the Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra and the Dortmund Opera. Under his leadership and following his successful concerts with the Dortmund Philharmonic at the Grosse Festspielhaus in Salzburg, he was invited to tour with the orchestra through Holland at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Belgium at the Palais de Beaux Arts in Brussels, and Austria (Salzburg) and China (Beijing and Shanghai). He conducted in that period, among others, new opera productions of Siegfried, Götterdämmerung and two Ring Cycles.

Mr. Fagen was born in New York where he began his conducting studies with Laszlo Halasz. Further studies continued at the Curtis Institute under the guidance of Max Rudolf, and both at the Salzburg Mozarteum and with Hans Swarowsky. A former assistant of both Christoph von Dohnanyi (Frankfurt Opera) and James Levine (Metropolitan Opera), Mr. Fagen’s career has been marked by a string of notable appearances, he has conducted opera productions at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera, Munich State Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatsoper Berlin, New York City Opera, Theatre Capitole de Toulouse, Bordeaux Opera, Frankfurt Opera, Staatstheater Stuttgart, New Israeli Opera, Baltimore Opera, Edmonton Opera, Spoleto Festival, Teatro Colon Buenos Aires, Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, Stadttheater Bozen, and from 1998 to 2001, Mr. Fagen was invited regularly as Guest Conductor at the Vienna State Opera. On the concert podium, Mr. Fagen has appeared with internationally known orchestras including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, the Czech Philharmonic, Munich Radio Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, RAI Orchestras (Torino, Naples, Milano, Roma), the Bergen Philharmonic, Prague Spring Festival, the Dutch Radio Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, to name but a few.

Mr. Fagen conducted a new production of Turandot at the Atlanta Opera opening the season 2007/2008 with enormous success and inaugurating the new Opera House, the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center. Soon after he conducted the contemporary opera Cold Sassy Tree by Carlisle Floyd. The next seasons included engagements with the Israel Symphony Orchestra, Holland Sinfonia, Buenos Aires Philharmonic, Dortmunder Philharmoniker, Sicily and Rome’s Symphony Orchestras, Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Opera de Nice, concerts in Spain and in Taiwan.

Last seasons Mr. Fagen conducted Beethoven’s Fidelio in Portland, Akhnaten by Philip Glass, Wagner’s Fliegende Hollaender, Mozart’s Magic Flute, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Bizet’s Carmen, Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri, and Puccini’s Tosca in Atlanta. He conducted the NDR Hannover in Braunschweig and at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival, the Winterthur Orchestra in Switzerland, and has been invited to conduct concerts in Italy, Spain, Poland and South America. ??Arthur Fagen was first prizewinner of the “Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Conductors Competition” as well as prizewinner of the “Gino Marinuzzi International Conductors’ Competition” in Italy.? ?Mr. Fagen has recorded for BMG, Bayerischer Rundfunk, SFB and WDR Cologne. He records regularly for Naxos, for whom he has completed the 6 symphonies of Bohuslav Martinu and Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies with the Staatskapelle Weimar. The Naxos recording of Martinu’s Piano Concertos has been awarded an Editor’s Choice in the March 2010 issue of Gramophone Magazine.

Mr. Fagen is Professor of Orchestral Conducting at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.

Arnaldo Cohen (piano)

The Brazilian-born pianist Arnaldo Cohen, now living in the United States, has long had a reputation for astonishing his audiences with the musical authority and blistering virtuosity of his performances. His graceful and unaffected platform manner belies playing of white-hot intensity, intellectual probity, and glittering bravura technique bordering on sheer wizardry. Long in demand internationally, Mr. Cohen has in the past few years entered a rarefied echelon among performers in America as well. He is regularly invited to appear as soloist with major orchestras, such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His solo recitals everywhere draw enthusiastic crowds of cognoscenti. Critics, too, marvel at his mixture of musical complexity and élan.

“A model of balance and imagination” was Steve Smith’s verdict in his review of Mr. Cohen’s Town Hall recital in The New York Times last season.

“His judicious use of rubato and finely honed sense of dynamic contrast gave each Prelude its own shape and character. Technically flawless in treacherously difficult selections like No. 8 (F sharp minor) and No. 16 (B flat minor), Mr. Cohen lavished no less care on slower, simpler ones. No. 7 (A) was sweetly spun, while No.15 (D flat) was suffused with gentle melancholy … overall Mr. Cohen’s performance was a model of balance and imagination.

Following intermission he offered Chopin’s four substantial, dramatic Scherzos. Mr. Cohen opened and closed No. 1 at a hair-raising clip, but provided needed respite with a melting rendition of the central “Molto Piu Lento”. A restless performance of No.3., which combined a Beethoven-like intensity with radiant cascades worthy of Wagner, was followed by a commanding account of No.2, in which brilliant passagework surrounded a patient, poetic rendition of the trio section.”

Mr. Cohen performed Brahms’s Concerto No. 1 in D Minor with the Milwaukee Symphony under Andreas Delfs, and was reviewed by Tom Strini of the Milwaukee Journal:

“Cohen performed with the finest silken touch. His gypsy dance opened the finale with an explosion. This concerto has a great many notes in it, but if Cohen missed any, I missed the errors. The combination of technical command and expressive insight he demonstrated Friday is every musician’s goal.”

After performing a recital in Philadelphia, Mr. Cohen drew the following praise from distinguished critic David Patrick Stearns of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

“Cohen has the smarts, the emotional presence, and the technique of a major Chopin interpreter. That conclusion was evident not just from the Chopin, but from the larger musical worldview that Cohen crafted around the composer. Unlike many similarly exciting pianists, Cohen has built a loyal public with his annual Philadelphia Chamber Music Society concerts by presenting new variations on himself at every visit.”

And, in the words of no less a piano authority than former New York Times critic the late Harold C. Schonberg:

“First of all there is his sound — a burnished, unforced bronze-like sound somewhat in the Rachmaninoff manner. In a day when so many pianists sound bleak and percussive, Cohen produces a big sound that never splinters and is capable of any kind of nuance. He understands the pedals. He has a world-class technique. His playing, color and all, has text-book clarity. And he understands the Romantic style.”

After winning First Prize at the 1972 Busoni International Competition, in Italy, Mr. Cohen scored a triumph at the the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Soon after he moved to London and went on to build a repertoire of some 50 concertos and to perform with such orchestras as the Royal Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra de la Suisse Romande, and the Santa Cecilia Orchestra of Rome, collaborating with conductors Kurt Masur, Kurt Sanderling, Klaus Tennstedt, and Yehudi Menuhin (who described Cohen as “one of the greatest pianists I have ever heard”).

As a former professional violinist, teacher of physics, mathematics, cocktail pianist, and avid soccer fan, Mr. Cohen’s unconventional background contributed to the aura of surprise and discovery that attended virtually every one of his public performances a quality that greatly enhanced his success in the major concert halls of Europe and later the United States. Mr. Cohen’s interpretations have been greeted with such sweeping accolades as “magisterial”, “thrilling”, “intrepid”, “exultant”, and “trenchant”, all of which are a metric of Cohen’s extraordinary pianism. In many cases his playing has on different occasions drawn favorable comparisons with the work of such very different artists as Richter, Horowitz, Arrau, Argerich, Serkin, Gieseking, Lupu, and Kissin, a testament to the protean nature of his musicianship and virtuosity. Despite these comparisons, however, Mr. Cohen has developed a voice entirely his own.

Mr. Cohen has performed in solo recitals throughout the United States. One of his recent recitals, in Chicago, ignited the highest praise from John von Rhein, senior music critic of the Chicago Tribune:

“He is the greatest pianist you’ve never heard of. Cohen’s sensational recital added his name to the list of important performers who have made their local debuts before going on to become household names. If there is any justice in the world, he will do the same.”

In addition to his recital and orchestral appearances, Mr. Cohen has dedicated himself to the art of chamber music. For five years he was a member of the prestigious Amadeus Trio and he has performed with many string quartets, including the Lindsay Quartet, Chillingirian Quartet, Orlando Quartet, and the Vanbrugh Quartet.

Mr. Cohen is a frequent recording artist. Mr. Cohen’s second CD on the BIS label, an all-Liszt solo recording that includes the B Minor Sonata, Funérailles, Vallée d’Obermann, and Spanish Rhapsody, a disc that has received a flood of accolades:

“This is Liszt-playing on a grand scale, putting Cohen among the greats … Arnaldo Cohen’s playing blazes with the risk-taking, spontaneity and urgency of a live concert … Vallée d’Obermann emerges as an inspired dramatic tone poem, to which Cohen adds the element of white-hot improvisation; he yields little to Horowitz’s famous RCA recording in color and temperament. Cohen mingles narrative and textual clarity with a musical maturity and heady virtuosity in the Richter class.” – Jeremy Nicholas, Gramophone

“These performances pack a tremendous visceral punch but are among the most musically intelligent recordings of these celebrated pieces to grace the catalogue. Cohen shows how a magisterial Lisztian can shape lyrical content and play up contrasts of texture while shaping a firmly coherent musical structure…There are few pianists who can touch him when he hauls out the heavy technical artillery in ‘Rhapsody espagnole, breathtaking runs, whirlwind octaves and all.” – John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune

“Like Claudio Arrau, Cohen fully savours the dramatic implications (Sonata in B Minor) within slower, rhetorical sequences, yet raises the scintillation factor threefold in the infamous octave passages enough to run neck and neck alongside Martha Argerich’s molten temperament.” – Jed Distler, BBC Music Magazine

Last year, BIS released Mr. Cohen’s recording of the two Liszt Piano Concertos and the “Totentanz with the Sao Paulo State Symphony Orchestra. Jeremy Nicholas from the Gramophone stated that “for unapologetic bravura combined with intimate poetry, a complete empathy with Liszt’s intentions and full-blooded recorded sound, Cohen and his cohorts are hard to beat.”

Mr. Cohen’s pioneering CD, “Three Centuries of Brazilian Music on the BIS label has also been widely applauded by critics, with Bryce Morrison of Gramophone praising Cohen as “an intrepid explorer and immaculate pianist, and Jessica Dunchen of the International Piano Quarterly commenting, “Arnaldo Cohen’s playing is technically superb and full of the foot-tapping impetuosity of Brazilian dance, but also projects a sense of affection and nostalgia that appeals straight to the heart. So this disc is a triumph on several counts: as a performance, as a manifesto for Brazilian classical music and as a valuable resource to those wanting to explore this overly-neglected repertoire.”

Mr. Cohen’s previous recordings for other labels such as IMP Classics, Naxos and Vox, all of which were awarded high praise — have included classic performances of works by Liszt, Schumann, and Brahms. “I know of no modern recording of the Brahms-Handel Variations that approaches this one”, wrote piano authority Harold Schonberg in a review of Cohen’s recording of the work for the Vox label.

An artist of diverse interests and talents, Mr. 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 a livelihood while continuing piano studies with Jacques Klein, a disciple of the legendary American pianist, William Kapell. At the urging of Klein, Mr. Cohen pursued further training in Vienna with Bruno Seidlhofer and Dieter Weber.

Mr. Cohen is the recipient of a 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. In 2004, after living in London for 23 years, Mr. Cohen relocated to the United States and now holds a piano professorship with tenure at Indiana University in Bloomington where, upon his appointment, he was cited as “one of the world’s greatest living pianists”.

Cost: Free

For more information contact:

Sarah Slover
(812) 855-9846
[email protected]