Author: Nell

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Two World Premieres and a Winning Score

Sunday, March 16: Mercy On Ourselves (World Premiere)

Edvard Munch, “Mystical Shore,” 1897.

Emmanuel Music (Ryan Turner, Artistic Director), a “living laboratory for the music of J. S. Bach,” performs the World Premiere of Mercy On Ourselves on Sunday, March 16 at 10:00am ET at Emmanuel Church, Boston, MA and on livestream.

This motet for SATB choir was commissioned to pair with Bach’s Cantata BWV 46 (“Schauet doch und sehet”). My work, which features an original text, offers a musical meditation on the climate change crisis that takes its cues from Bach’s moving evocations of human sorrow and divine wrath. For more about this project, read my program note.

Event Information
Free livestream

Thursday, March 6: Street Haunting (Voices of NEC)

Camille Pissarro, The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning” (1897).

New England Conservatory Chamber Singers (Erica J. Washburn, Director) will perform Street Haunting, a winning score of the “Voices of NEC” alumni choral composition competition, on Thursday, March 6, 2025 at 7:30pm ET in Jordan Hall, Boston, MA and on livestream.

The competition’s winners were selected by a panel consisting of James Burton, Boston Symphony Orchestra Choral Director and Conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus; Anthony Trecek-King, Resident Conductor (chorus) with the Handel and Haydn Society; Anthony Maglione, composer and Director of Choral Studies at William Jewell College; and Erica J. Washburn, Director of Choral Activities at New England Conservatory.

Event Information
Free livestream

Thursday, March 6: I Would Like (World Premiere)

Agnes Lawrence Pelton, “Room Decoration in Purple and Gray” (Detail), 1917.

Arkansas State University Concert Choir (Ryan W. Sullivan, Director) will perform the World Premiere of I Would Like for SATB choir at the ninth annual Music by Women Festival at the Mississippi University for Women on Thursday, March 6 at 3:00PM CT in Columbus, MS and on livestream.

I Would Like was commissioned by the Arkansas State University Concert Choir for inclusion on a program of choral works by women. Director Ryan W. Sullivan invited me to set a poem by Kathryn I. W. Sparks in which the speaker paints a vision of the contentment they wish to feel at the end of their life. I sought to honor the emotional nuances of this reflective text through moments of madrigal-esque word painting and the gentle tension of harmonic suspensions.

Event Information
Free livestream

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Holiday Performances of Nell’s Music & More

Choral Concerts in Philadelphia & Boston

This Sunday, Singing City (Rollo Dilworth, Artistic Director)—Philadelphia’s premier avocational chorus, founded in 1948—will perform my winter choral cycle Blue Shadows, Silver Sunlight.

Their holiday program, A Season of Song, features songs of the season representing many religious and secular traditions. A Season of Song will be performed on Sunday, December 15 at 3:00pm at Tindley Temple in Philadelphia, PA. Tickets and more information here.

Logo for Emmanuel MusicThe following weekend Emmanuel Music (Ryan Turner, Artistic Director) will perform my choral work It’s a Long Way during their Blue Christmas service at Boston’s Emmanuel Church, presented on the evening of the Winter Solstice.

The service will be held on Saturday, December 21 at 6:00pm in the Lindsey Chapel at Emmanuel Church, Boston, MA. More information here.

Nell Receives 2024 ASCAP Plus Award

Many thanks to ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) for awarding me an ASCAP Plus Award for the second year in a row!

This award recognizes ASCAP writer members whose works are substantially performed in media not surveyed by ASCAP, or whose works have a unique prestige value for which adequate compensation would not otherwise be received.

Current & Recent Art Exhibitions in Woodstock

I’ve recently had the honor of exhibiting my watercolor paintings in four different art shows at the historic Woodstock Artists Association & Museum in Woodstock, NY.

My work will be on display as part of the following exhibitions, both through December 29:

This Fall my works were also featured in Small Works A-F, an annual members’ exhibition; and Water: Source of Life, juried by Kathleen Vance and Daniel Aycock of Front Room Gallery, NY.

A current list of exhibitions, as well as an online gallery and list of works available for sale, are posted to my visual art portfolio page.

(Above: Fresh Snow on the Peterskill, 2024. Watercolor and gouache on paper. 9×12 in.)

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Whitman Songs & The Coming of Spring: New Recordings and Scores

photo of a concert performance by a singer and pianist
Matthew Marco and Joe Dan Harper performing at the Burchfield Penney Art Center on August 4.

Last month the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, NY presented Buffalo Opera Unlimited in a full concert of my opera and art songs comparing the works of two iconic American artists: painter Charles E. Burchfield and poet Walt Whitman.

This special program included three art song settings of Walt Whitman for tenor and piano: a World Premiere (Proofs of Coming Fullness) and two brand new arrangements of existing works (The Open Road and Laws for Creations).

The artists also performed a semi-staged production of The Coming of Spring, my monodrama based on Charles E. Burchfield’s life and writings, in a new piano reduction score.

Check out my YouTube playlist for live recordings of all of the above, and follow the links below for lyrics, program notes, and perusal scores for each of these works, which are all scored for tenor and piano:

*  Libretto and perusal score available by request to: nell@nellshawcohen.com

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Arkansas State University Concert Choir Commission for 2024-25

New choral work to feature poetry by Kathryn I. W. Sparks

Logo for Arkansas State UniversityIt’s my pleasure to be embarking on a wonderful collaboration with the Arkansas State University Concert Choir (Ryan W. Sullivan, Director). The ensemble has commissioned me to write a choral setting of a stirring text by contemporary poet Kathryn I. W. Sparks for their 2024-25 season.

The World Premiere will take place in Spring 2025 (date TBA). Watch this space for updates!

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Emmanuel Music Commission for 2024-25 Cantata Series

Boston institution invites Nell to contribute new music to landmark Bach Cantata Series

Logo for Emmanuel MusicI’ve had the great honor of receiving a commission from Boston’s Emmanuel Music (Ryan Turner, Artistic Director), a “living laboratory for the music of J. S. Bach,” which for over fifty years has presented outstanding performances of Bach’s cantatas at Emmanuel Church.

For their signature Cantata Series, Emmanuel Music is commissioning five composers to write choral motets conceived to be heard alongside cantatas from Bach’s oeuvre. My piece will be paired with Bach’s Cantata BWV 46 (“Schauet doch und sehet”).

The premiere of this work will be given during Sunday morning worship service on March 16, 2025 at Emmanuel Church (15 Newbury St, Boston, MA.) The service is free and open to all to attend. I will be sharing more information as the date approaches—in the meantime, learn more about Emmanuel Music’s 2024-25 season here.

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Burchfield & Whitman in Opera and Song on August 4th in Buffalo, NY

Detailed watercolor landscape painting depicting a forest and babbling brook in the transition from winter to spring
Charles Burchfield, “The Coming of Spring” (1917-43)
SUNDAY, AUGUST 4, 2024 AT 2:00PM

Burchfield & Whitman in Opera and Song:
Buffalo Opera Unlimited Performs the Music of Nell Shaw Cohen
Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY

Next month the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, NY presents a full concert of my opera and art songs comparing the works of two iconic American artists: painter Charles E. Burchfield and poet Walt Whitman.

Tenors Joe Dan Harper and Alexander Kosmowski join Matthew Marco, pianist and Artistic Director of Buffalo Opera Unlimited, in this special event presented in conjunction with the Burchfield Penney Art Center’s exhibition Embracing Earth: Burchfield & Whitman.

My musical interpretations of Whitman’s Poem of The Road and Laws for Creations will be performed alongside the exclusive World Premiere of Proofs of Coming Fullness, which is based on text from Whitman’s memoir Specimen Days.

This will be followed by a staged production of my 2014 work The Coming of Spring: a one-man opera illuminating Burchfield’s artistic evolution. In this work, a series of poignant chronological episodes reveal how perceptions of nature framed Burchfield’s life experience: from days collecting insects during his rural Midwestern childhood to the years in which he supported his large family by producing popular images of industrial and suburban scenery in Buffalo.

Burchfield’s mission to develop the expressive power of his art—and to convey the transition from winter to spring in a single image—leads to a revelation in 1943 with the completion of the monumental titular painting.

Originally scored for tenor with a six-piece chamber ensemble, The Coming of Spring will be performed here in piano-vocal reduction.

Free and open to the public, with limited seating. More information here.

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Nell’s Paintings Featured in Hudson Vallery Arts Events, Spring 2024

I’m delighted that my work as a painter was selected for inclusion in two art events here in the Hudson Valley this spring! To learn more about my visual art, visit my new art portfolio page.

Posted for "Woodland Creatures" exhibitFRIDAY, MAY 3-SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2024

Woodland Creatures
Wallkill River Center for the Arts, Montgomery, NY

A new painting of mine will be included in this group exhibition juried by Susan Siegel. More information here.

SATURDAY, JUNE 8 (RAIN DATE: SUNDAY, JUNE 9), 2024
AUCTION & EXHIBITION THROUGH SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 2024

Plein Air Art Walk
Presented by Mohonk Preserve and Roost Arts Hudson Valley
Mohonk Preserve, New Paltz, NY

Posted for "Woodland Creatures" exhibit
Photo by Bill Winter for Mohonk Preserve

I will be painting in this special event celebrating Mohonk Preserve and the magic of creating artworks en plein air.

Visitors will have a chance to watch artists at work, stationed at breathtaking views on a trail starting from Mohonk Preserve’s Testimonial Gateway.

Immediately following the event, the finished artworks will be sold in an online auction and displayed at the Mohonk Preserve Visitors Center through the month of June. More information here.

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The American Prize Selects Nell as Finalist for “Sauntering Songs”

The American Prize sealIt’s a huge honor to have been selected as a Finalist in the Major Choral Works division of The American Prize, the national non-profit competitions in the performing arts, for my work Sauntering Songs!

Winners will be announced later this year. See the complete list of finalists.

Commissioned and premiered by Skylark Vocal Ensemble (Matthew Guard, Artistic Director) with guest performances by Juventas New Music Ensemble and James Moore, Sauntering Songs is probably my favorite project to date. So recognition for this work is especially meaningful to me.

Sauntering Songs emerged through my engagement of an array of authors, advocates, and activists who have deeply explored walking as a personal, cultural, and political practice. The work’s musical language encompasses choral music, chamber music, musical theater, and progressive rock, among many other influences, carrying my early background as a rock musician forward into my present practice as a composer.

Album cover for "Sauntering Songs"Engaging with themes of gender, age, race, class, and disability through an intersectional feminist lens—and traversing stories ranging from trespassing in the British countryside to thru-hiking on the Appalachian trail—Sauntering Songs asks the question: “If walking is an essential way of being […] Then who may claim the right to be in this world?”

Skylark’s World Premiere live recording of Sauntering Songs (paired with Transform the World with Beauty) is available on all major streaming music platforms (including Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, Pandora, and Tidal). The physical CD is available for purchase from Skylark. Check out the liner notes for my libretto and introductory essay to accompany your listening.

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Nell’s music at ASTA, PMEA, & NATS conferences, plus Monmouth Civic Orchestra

Spring’s greetings, friends!

On today’s equinox, here in the Hudson Valley, buds and sprouts are emerging from winter dormancy and migratory birds are making their appearances. Meanwhile, the spring concert season is warming up around the country.

I’m honored that my music is being featured at three different professional conferences for music educators in the coming months, in performances ranging from a chorus of 245 young voices to solo cello. Additionally, my orchestral tone poem The Sphinx and the Milky Way will be given its fifth performance! Read on for details of these performances.

Wishing you all the best,

-Nell

(Image above: the skunk cabbage, icon of spring!)

Horizon at ASTA National Conference

Thursday, March 21 at 2:30pm
Kentucky International Convention Center, Louisville, KY

My work for solo cello, Horizon, was selected through a national Call for Scores to be featured in the New Music Reading Sessions at the American String Teachers Association (ASTA) National Conference.

Horizon will be presented by Mira Frisch in the Applied Studio: Solo and Chamber Music reading session featuring music by Women Composers for Cello, Double Bass, Harp, & Guitar.

It’s a Long Way at PMEA Annual Conference

Saturday, April 20 at 4:00pm
Warner Theatre, Erie, PA

The 245 young voices of the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association (PMEA) All-State Chorus, conducted by Christopher Jackson, will perform my choral work It’s a Long Way at the annual PMEA Conference in Erie, PA.

Monmouth Civic Orchestra Performs The Sphinx and the Milky Way

Painting "The Sphinx and the Milky Way" by Charles E. Burchfield

Sunday, April 28 at 3:00pm
Monmouth College, Monmouth, IL

The Monmouth Civic Orchestra, conducted by Richard Cangro, performs my orchestral tone poem inspired by the paintings of Charles E. Burchfield.

Woman Walking at the NATS National Conference

Monday, July 1 at 2:00pm
NATS National Conference, Knoxville, TN

As winner of the 2024 National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Artist Award, soprano Emily Siar will perform my song Woman Walking on her featured solo recital at the NATS National Conference.