Gilad Cohen

Gilad Cohen (b. 1980) is an active composer, performer, and theorist in various musical genres including concert music, rock, and music for theater. His music adapts features from a wide range of musical realms and explores intersections among them, bringing to his creative table the persistent textures of rock, the painstaking orchestration of impressionism, the gloomy harmonies of grunge and metal, the jubilant rhythms of klezmer, the motionless landscapes of psychedelic rock, the agile melodies and scales of Arabic music, and the striking dissonances of 20th-century avant-garde.

Gilad has received commissions from Barlow Endowment, ASCAP, Chamber Music America, Concert Artists Guild, Parlance Chamber Concerts, Houston Arts Alliance, Tre Voci (Kim Kashkashian, Marina Piccinini and Sivan Magen), and Jerusalem Music Center, among others. His music was performed in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle-East and released on Albany Records, Naxos/Delos, and Navona Records. He is known for his compositions for harp (including Trio for a Spry Clarinet, Weeping Cello and Ruminating Harp, Firefly Elegy, Doaa and Masa, and Trailheads), which are regularly performed around the world. Gilad’s notable awards include the Barlow Prize, the Israeli Prime Minister Award for Composers, and prizes from the American Liszt Society, Lin Yao Ji Music Foundation (China), Franz Josef Reinl Foundation (Austria), Lycia Guitar Days (Turkey), and Left Coast Chamber Ensemble (USA), among others. His music for the stage includes the monodrama Dragon Mother for soprano and orchestra, the one-act musical Healthy Start, and music for various productions in the US and Israel including Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan, and Nissim Aloni’s Napoleon – Dead or Alive!. Current engagements include the world premiere of Gilad’s new harp concerto for Sivan Magen with Roosevelt Island Orchestra and conductor Benjamin Hochman in April 2024, and a piece for 2 rappers/singers and large ensemble about African-American singer/activist Paul Robeson, which Gilad co-creates with lyricist/rapper Ronvé O’Daniel.

Gilad has played piano, bass guitar and guitar with various ensembles at venues in the US, Canada, Mexico, and Israel including New York’s Merkin Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Symphony Space. His research about the music of Pink Floyd has resulted in publications in books and academic journals, lectures in the US and Israel, and the first-ever academic conference devoted to the band that he produced in 2014 at Princeton University together with composer Dave Molk. An Associate Professor of Music at Ramapo College of New Jersey, Gilad holds a Ph.D. in Composition from Princeton University and is a graduate of Mannes School of Music, the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, and BMI Lehman Engel Advanced Musical Theatre Workshop. His principal teachers include Robert Cuckson, Steven Mackey, Paul Lansky, and Michael Wolpe.