awards – Page 2 – Nell Shaw Cohen

July 24, 2015April 7, 2016

Nell Awarded Composers & the Voice Fellowship by American Opera Projects

Graphic by American Opera Projects

I am absolutely thrilled and honored to have been selected by American Opera Projects to participate in the eighth season of their renowned Composers & the Voice fellowship program!

Directed by conductor Steven Osgood (The Metropolitan Opera, Beth Morrison Projects, et al), this program gives emerging composers and librettists experience working collaboratively with singers on writing for the voice and contemporary opera stage.

The two-year fellowships, made possible through a generous grant by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, include a year of working with the company’s Resident Ensemble of Singers and Artistic Team at AOP’s home base in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, followed by a year of continued promotion and development through AOP and its strategic partnerships.

You’ll be able to hear my work in May 2016 at First Glimpse, AOP’s bi-annual concert of songs written in the C&V workshops. A second concert in September 2016 will showcase full opera scenes created by the composers over the summer.

Check out AOP’s official announcement to learn more about C&V and the accomplished group of artists I’ll have the privilege of joining this fall. I look forward to sharing the products of this program with you over the coming months and years!

February 6, 2014August 2, 2014

NYU Symphony to Premiere “Point Reyes from Chimney Rock” on March 3

Tom Killion, "Point Reyes from Chimney Rock", 2012. Used with permission of the artist. — Tom Killion, “Point Reyes from Chimney Rock”, 2012.
Used by permission of the artist.

UPDATE: The recording of this performance is now available, below!

As Composer-in-Residence with the NYU Symphony, I will receive the honor of having a newly commissioned work for orchestra, Point Reyes from Chimney Rock, premiered on Monday, March 3, 8:00pm at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, 566 LaGuardia Place, New York, NY, the preeminent venue for the presentation of cultural and performing arts events for NYU and lower Manhattan. The concert will also include works by Britten, Tchaikovsky, and my colleague Kyle Tieman-Strauss.

While Point Reyes is my sixth composition for large ensemble, it’s the first to be publicly performed. I hope some of you will be able to share this special moment with me.

About the Music

A tone poem inspired by the coastal landscape of the San Francisco Bay Area where I was born and raised, Point Reyes from Chimney Rock takes its title from a woodblock print by contemporary artist Tom Killion (www.tomkillion.com), which I received as gift from my parents in Summer 2013.

The print depicts a view of Point Reyes, the peninsula jutting into the ocean north of San Francisco, from which the rugged Pacific can be seen on one side of the rocky, grass-frosted land mass, and Drake’s Bay on the other. Wild irises and grasses in the foreground appear to tremble in a brisk wind, while the water’s horizon and a looming orange-red sky stretch far into the distance.

Killion’s artwork, along with my personal experiences walking in this and similar environs on the Point Reyes National Seashore, informed the sound world I strove to create within the orchestra. This landscape is broad and sweeping on the large scale, yet delicate and intimate in the details; it is bold yet ethereal, in both sunshine and fog. My love and yearning for this place is embedded in the music.

November 5, 2013November 7, 2013

Nell Selected for Residency with NYU Symphony

I am thrilled to announce that I have recently been named Composer-in-Residence by the New York University Symphony, along with two of my colleagues. This is the highest honor offered by NYU to concert music composition students.

I will writing a new work for orchestra to be premiered on a public concert by the NYU Symphony at the Skirball Center in New York on March 3, 2014. Stay posted for details!

May 10, 2013June 20, 2013

Nell Awarded Grant from NYU Steinhardt for Multimedia Project

My forthcoming multimedia project Illuminating John Muir’s Yosemite through Music, Video and New Media was recently selected to receive the Undergraduate and Master’s Students Research/Creative Project Award through the Challenge Grant program at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

Illuminating John Muir’s Yosemite will be an online installation and live performance weaving together a song cycle for soprano and piano with original video, photographs, and literary selections exploring naturalist John Muir’s experiences in Yosemite National Park at the turn of the 20th century. The audience will be invited to inhabit, re-imagine, re-invigorate, and share in John Muir’s vision of nature as a source of spiritual and creative inspiration.

This summer I will be traveling to Yosemite National Park to collect footage and photographs for this project. Stay tuned for updates!

May 25, 2012

My Dream Scholarship… is a Reality.

I learned this week that I’ve been chosen to receive the nation’s most generous independent scholarship for graduate studies in the arts. The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation is a private foundation established in 2000 by Jack Kent Cooke to help exceptionally promising students with financial need reach their full potential through education. The Foundation has taken an amazing vote of confidence in my future by selecting me to be one of this year’s 15 recipients of the Graduate Arts Award.

The Award covers cost of attendance in a graduate degree program for up to $50,000 per year for three years (extending to multiple degrees as needed). It’s given to college students or recent graduates with significant financial need who will pursue a graduate or professional degree in the visual arts, performing arts, or creative writing.

Candidates for the scholarship must be nominated by a faculty representative at their undergraduate institution. Each college or university may nominate up to two candidates. I was nominated by NEC’s Provost and Dean, Thomas Novak, and recommended by Chair of Composition, Michael Gandolfi, and Chair of Liberal Arts, Patrick Keppel. A review panel of distinguished artists, arts faculty, and university administrators selected the recipients using criteria including artistic or creative merit, academic achievement, financial need, will to succeed, and a breadth of interests and activities.

May 25, 2012

I’ve Graduated from NEC… with the Chadwick Medal in Tow!

Nell Receives NEC's Chadwick Medal. Photo by Jeff Thiebauth.

NEC's President Tony Woodcock Presents Nell with Her Diploma. Photo by Jeff Thiebauth.

At Commencement, I was thrilled to be presented with the George Whitefield Chadwick Medal: the highest honor bestowed upon an undergraduate at NEC. The Chadwick Medal recipient is selected by members of NEC’s faculty and administration and is presented “to a graduating senior whose entire record of achievement has been most distinguished in the candidates major field, supplementary studies, extracurricular activities, and good citizenship” (according to the Commencement program).

The Chadwick medal is one of several honors that the Conservatory has presented me with–including the Presser Scholar Award, which was announced at the Convocation ceremony last fall and was accompanied by a $4,800 prize.