Acclaimed Jazz Musician Anat Cohen in Concert at SF Fine Arts Hall March 28
February 24, 2015
Israeli clarinetist/saxophonist/bandleader Anat Cohen, who has been voted Clarinetist of the Year for seven straight years by the Jazz Journalists Association, will appear in concert as part of the Santa Fe College Master Artist Series at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 28, 2015, in the Fine Arts Hall at the Northwest Campus, 3000 NW 83 Street, Gainesville.
Tickets for the performance are $15 for adult orchestra and mezzanine seats; $12 for adult balcony seats; $9 for seniors, children, and University of Florida students and faculty; and $9 for faculty, staff and students of Santa Fe College. For ticket information, call the Box Office at 352-395-4181. Tickets may be purchased on line at:
https://www.sfcollege.edu/finearts/
Born in Tel Aviv, Cohen began playing the clarinet at age 12. She fulfilled her Israeli military service by playing tenor saxophone in the Israeli Air Force Band. In 1996, she came to the United States where she attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston. There, she was inspired by students from South America and Latin countries. "Hearing them play the samba of Brazil, chacarrera of Argentina and cumbia of Colombia, I loved those rhythms immediately and was drawn to playing them myself," Cohen has said. "The flowing Latin rhythms opened up a whole world of groove to me and added new layers of expressivity in my jazz playing." In Boston, Cohen played tenor saxophone in a variety of bands including Afro-Cuban, Argentinean, klezmer, contemporary Brazilian music and classic Brazilian choro.
After graduating from Berklee, Cohen toured with The Diva Jazz Orchestra for a decade, worked in Brazilian groups and performed the music of Louis Armstrong with the Gully Low Jazz Band. In 2005, Cohen established her own record label and kicked off her discography as a bandleader with Place & Time, a small-combo session of mostly original tunes that was named one of the year's best debuts by All About Jazz.
Cohen has performed in top jazz clubs throughout the world and is the first Israeli to headline at the Village Vanguard, the setting of some of the greatest recordings in jazz history. She has played in Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center and Kennedy Center and at the great jazz festivals including Newport, Chicago, Monterey, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage, SF Jazz (San Francisco), Playboy (Los Angeles), Duke Ellington (Washington, D.C.), Montreal, Copenhagen, Jazz a Vienne, Umbria, North Sea (Netherlands), Tudo e Jazz (Brazil), Caesaria (Israel) and Zagreb Jazzarella.
The Chicago Tribune has praised the "lyric beauty of her tone, easy fluidity of her technique and extroverted manner of her delivery." Cuban-American clarinetist-saxophonist Paquito D'Rivera, one of her heroes, called Cohen "one of the greatest players ever of the clarinet." All Music Guide explained, "What makes Cohen's music so special, aside from the high level of musicianship, is her fertile imagination. Through all of her efforts as a leader, there's hardly a speck of filler, but rather a wealth of ideas and the desire to expand the purview of her instrument beyond putative traditional swing."
"When I share music with people-other musicians or an audience-it always feels like a celebration to me," Cohen has said.
The Santa Fe College Master Artists Series is co-presented by the Santa Fe College Foundation and the college's Fine Arts Department. The series is sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture and Visit Gainesville, a Tourist Development Tax Grant from the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners in conjunction with the Alachua County Tourist Development Council.
For more information, call Cultural Affairs Coordinator Kathryn Lehman at 352-395-5355.
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