Alumnus Jacques Cohen premieres his work Creation in London in March

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Faculty of Music alumnus Jacques Cohen (Hertford College, 1988) has composed a piece to be premiered in London on the 23 March. Creation is a setting for orchestra, alto soloist, mixed choir and children's voices of biblical texts interspersed with modern verse that concern Mankind's threat to himself and the planet. Creation is Cohen's fourth large-scale piece for chorus and orchestra. "Its premier will be under the auspices of Lloyd's Choir, with the superb Mae Heydorn as the alto soloist and an enlarged Cohen Ensemble. I hope it is quite an event." 

Jacques read music at Oxford where he conducted the university orchestras and performed several of his own compositions. When leaving Oxford, he was awarded the Conducting Scholarship at the Royal College of Music where he later won the Tagore Gold Medal, the College's prize for its most outstanding student. Since then he has won several other awards including the August Manns Conducting Prize and the Constant and Kit Lambert Award. He took First Prize in the British Reserve Conducting Competition and was also a prize winner in the Leeds Conductors' Competition.

For more information about the event and the composer, please visit Jacques Cohen's website. To learn more about Creation, you can hear Jacques discussing the piece on the podcast The Three In A Bar, or watch the video on the Lloyds Choir YouTube channel. Tickets for the concert are available via Eventbrite.