Filming The Faraway Nearby: Georgia O'Keeffe and the New Mexico Landscape

Nell Shaw Cohen (b. 1988) was born in San Francisco and raised in California and New York. Cohen currently studies at New England Conservatory in Boston, MA under the tutelage of Michael Gandolfi and John Mallia, and was named NEC's 2011-2012 Presser Scholar. She has written for chamber ensembles, orchestra, wind ensemble, choir, solo instruments and solo voice.

Much of Cohen's work is fueled by her exploration of the intersections between music and visual art. Cohen's string quartet inspired by paintings by Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire, was presented in July 2011 at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA at the opening of the national touring exhibit, Painting the American Vision.

Cohen was awarded her second Entrepreneurial Grant from the New England Conservatory Entrepreneurial Musicianship Department to produce multimedia website and mobile app concert companion Beyond the Notes (beyondthenotes.org), which accompanied the Peabody Essex Museum concert and will complement a program of Cohen's visual art-inspired music in Boston on November 2, 2011. She was previously awarded an Entrepreneurial Grant in summer 2010 to create a video piece relating to the work of painter Georgia O'Keeffe, which received its premiere in November 2010 (more at www.thefaraway.org).

Cohen is the winner of the NEC Honors Ensemble Composition Competition (2011), and received the Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Prize from the International Alliance for Women in Music (2009), the Elizabeth Brockman Award (2008), and is a featured artist of the Swiss Global Artistic Foundation. She has participated in master classes with John Harbison, Dame Evelyn Glennie, and Geoffrey Simon. Cohen has premiered 16 chamber works on the New England Conservatory Tuesday Night New Music concert series during the 2008-2011 seasons.

Before shifting her focus to concert music, Cohen developed proficiency performing and composing progressive rock music (singing and playing guitar, bass, keyboard and drums). In 2006 she produced an original album titled Tempus (under the name Nell James). It received favorable reviews in the U.S. and abroad. For more information on Tempus and other past recordings, visit www.nelljames.com.

To learn about Cohen's work in video and animation, visual art, design, and writing, please visit her multimedia portfolio at www.nellmedia.com.

Contact nell@nellshawcohen.com with questions or comments.

© 2011 Nell Shaw Cohen
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