Jonathan Cohler is recognized as the preeminent, most-recorded clarinet soloist of our time. Through his performances around the world and on record, he has thrilled an ever widening audience with his musicianship and total technical command, which American Record Guide hailed as “superhuman” while Fanfare Magazine placed him in the pantheon of legendary musicians—“one thinks of Dinu Lipatti”—and Gramophone lauded his “poetry that lesser artists miss.”
As both clarinetist and conductor, he has received numerous resounding accolades and awards including the Outstanding Recording mark of the American Record Guide, BBC Music Magazine’s Best CDs of The Year selection, and top ratings from magazines, radio stations, and record guides worldwide. This CD is the second in a series inaugurated by Cohler plays and conducts Weber with the renowned Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra that Fanfare Magazine featured on its cover and praised Cohler’s “extraordinary musical intelligence and technical wizardry” while dubbing his performances as “supernatural.” Mr. Cohler and multiple-award-winning Lithuanian pianist Rasa Vitkauskaite form today’s leading clarinet-piano duo, which is featured on recent recordings American Tribute, Romanza, and Rhapsodie Française.
Mr. Cohler maintains a busy international schedule with performances that regularly take him around the world, most recently to cities in the United States, Belgium, Hungary, Canada, Italy, Spain, Poland, Japan, Taiwan, China, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Mexico and Cuba. In addition to his work as soloist, Mr. Cohler is an active chamber musician, chamber music coach, adjudicator, conductor, pedagogue, and publisher. He collaborates frequently with many well-known musicians and ensembles including Ilya Kaler, James Buswell, members of the Emerson Quartet, Muir String Quartet, Claremont Trio, Arianna String Quartet, Lark Quartet, Moscow Conservatory Trio, Halcyon Chamber Music Festival, Boris Berezovsky, Andres Diaz, Charles Neidich, Randall Hodgkinson, Judith Gordon, Andrew Mark, and Janice Weber.
Mr. Cohler is the Music Director of the Massachusetts Philharmonic Orchestra; Founder and Director of the International Woodwind Festival, Boston Clarinet Academy, and Chamber Music Boston; Vice President and founding board member of the Boston Woodwind Society; and the Massachusetts State Chair of the International Clarinet Association. He is also in demand as a guest conductor around the world with orchestras such as the Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Caracas, Venezuela.
Mr. Cohler’s clarinet teachers include legendary Boston Symphony Orchestra clarinetist Pasquale Cardillo, Harold Wright, Karl Leister, Charles Neidich and Frank Martin. He graduated with high honors in physics from Harvard University.
Mr. Cohler is Professor of Clarinet, Conducting, and Chamber Music at the Longy School of Music of Bard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has been guest faculty at conservatories and universities around the world such as Mozarteum University in Salzburg, Eastman School of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music, and Harvard University to name a few. He is a Vandoren, Silverstein, Rossi, and Royal Global artist, and records exclusively for Ongaku Records.
For more information, see his web site at jonathancohler.com or his Facebook page at facebook.com/J.Cohler which is the #1 classical clarinet Facebook page in the world.
