This is one of a series of diaries I've been posting over the past ten days, introducing the artists who will be performing here in the People's Republic of Cambridge on the 24th of October. The occasion? International Climate Change Awareness Day. The concert?
It's called "Playing for the Planet."
Follow me below the flip to find out more about Beth Bahia Cohen, to hear some beautiful music, and to get connected to a really exciting event.
But first, a word from our sponsor:
Please participate in an event on October 24. This is as important as it will ever get.
On Saturday, October 24, six different Boston-based performers of international music and dance will join together to draw attention to the global climate crisis. Featured artists include: Balkan and European music by members of the internationally acclaimed ensemble Libana; contemporary Indian classical dance with the Aparna Sindhoor Dance Theater; Japanese classical music for koto and shakuhachi with Ayakano Cathleen Read & Elizabeth Reian Bennett; Hindustani classical music with Warren Senders and The Raga Ensemble; middle-Eastern music with Beth Bahia Cohen, and traditional drumming and dance of Ghana with the Agbekor Drum and Dance Society. The music begins at 6:30 pm, at the First Congregational Church of Cambridge, 11 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA. Tickets are $20; $15 students/seniors. All proceeds will go to the environmental organization www.350.org. For information, please go to the concert website.
Previous diaries in this series showcase the international women's ensemble Libana, the exciting drumming of the Agbekor Drum and Dance Society, and the exquisite Japanese classical music of Ayakano Cathleen Read and Elizabeth Reian Bennett.
Beth Bahia Cohen is of Syrian Jewish and Russian Jewish descent and has spent many years exploring the ways the violin and other bowed string instruments are played in Greece, Turkey, Hungary, and the Middle East. She plays several Greek lyras, the Turkish bowed tanbur and kabak kemane, the Egyptian rababa, the Norwegian hardanger fiddle, and more. She plays village music from Hungary, Greek music from various regions of Greece, Turkish classical and folk music, and Arabic and Klezmer music.
Beth Bahia Cohen
She was trained as a classical violinist and violist in New York, getting her Master's Degree from Manhattan School of Music, and spent several years performing with numerous symphony, ballet, opera and chamber orchestras in New York and Europe, as well as in Broadway shows and commercial recording studios.
As a violinist and violist, Beth has appeared as soloist and in numerous chamber groups, including the St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra (both in N.Y. and Boston), the Philharmonia Virtuosi, the Phillip Glass Ensemble, and more. She has performed with numerous symphony, ballet, and opera orchestras, including the Brooklyn Philharmonic under Lukas Foss, the Berlin Opera Ballet, the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Cuban Ballet, the New York City Opera, and many more. She has also performed with Led Zeppelin, Johnny Mathis, Angela Lansbury, Dick van Dyke, Victor Borge, Jean Redpath, and once gave a private concert for physicist Stephen Hawking.
Two views of Beth's studio wall, with part of her collection of bowed instruments from all over the world.
Beth then traveled, studied and performed with masters of the violin and other bowed instruments from Hungary, Greece, Turkey, the Middle East, and Norway. She was a Radcliffe Bunting Fellow and has been the recipient of many travel and research grants, including an NEA/Artists International grant to study the classical music of Turkey.
Beth Bahia Cohen in motion
In addition to performing throughout the U.S., she teaches workshops and ensembles on Middle Eastern, Eastern European, Greek and Turkish music in conservatories and universities throughout the U.S as well as teaching privately in her studio in Watertown. She performs solo concerts of traditional and original music on various bowed string instruments from many countries (The Art of the Bow), as well as concerts exploring traditional Jewish music from all over the world. At this concert, Beth will be joined by Mac Ritchey on oud, and Todd Roach and Gabe Halberg on percussion.
Here is Beth performing a traditional Greek melody, "Smyrnaika Tsiftetelli." I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Beth and I both teach in the Music Department at Tufts University, and we've crossed paths with one another for years in the Boston "World Music" community (to the extent that such a thing exists). She reads Daily Kos, but does not yet have a user ID. Perhaps that will change sometime soon. When I asked her to participate in "Playing for the Planet," her response was immediate and positive. It's been great putting together this concert, and getting a chance to work with so many artists I respect so much.
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Please participate in an event on October 24. This is as important as it will ever get.
If you live in Massachusetts, here's a link to the Mass Climate Action Network, which gives you a full list of planned activities.
If you don't live in Massachusetts, but you know someone who does...let them know about this.
And if you can make it to "Playing for the Planet," please come up and introduce yourself. You can purchase tickets online through a link at my website.
And if you're somewhere else in the world, please go to 350.org, and either find an action in your area on October 24, or start one yourself.
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About www.350.org and the number 350:
Co-founded by environmentalist and author Bill McKibben, 350.org is the hub of a worldwide network of over two hundred environmental organizations, all with a common target: persuading the world's countries to unite in an effort to reduce global levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million or less. Climatologist Dr. James Hansen says, "If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm." (Dr. Hansen heads the NASA Institute for Space Studies in New York City, and is best known for his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s that helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue.) Activists involved in the 350 movement include Rajendra Pachauri (Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), Vandana Shiva (world-renowned environmental leader and thinker), Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1984 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and a global activist on issues pertaining to democracy, freedom and human rights), Van Jones, Bianca Jagger, Dr. James Hansen, Barbara Kingsolver and many more.
(complete list of "350 Messengers here)
About the Global Day of Climate Change Action on October 24th, 2009:
Here is the action page at www.350.org
Here is a discussion of the science behind the number 350.
Here is a description of the Day of Action on October 24th.
And once again, with feeling:
Please participate in an event on October 24. This is as important as it will ever get.