Isidore Cohen

Upon returning to civilian life, he became a student of Ivan Galamian at Juilliard. Galamian had misgivings about accepting a 24-year-old student, but wanted to help a war veteran. From there, his life as a musician started to blossom, even drawing the attention of Igor Stravinsky with his performance of Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat. He became well known for his attention given to modern composers, and notably worked closely on many pieces with John Cage. He was frequently concertmaster for Leonard Bernstein's televised "Young People's Concerts". His performance as concertmaster under Stravinsky's baton of "The Rite of Spring" is one of those preserved on the gold album carried by the Voyager spacecraft. In 1952 Alexander Schneider invited Cohen to join his quartet as second violinist. During Cohen's tenure, the Schneider quartet recorded the first complete set of Joseph Haydn's string quartets, a milestone noted in Time magazine. Beginning in 1958, Cohen became second violinist of the Juilliard String Quartet, a post he held for nearly a decade. In 1968, following the retirement of violinist Daniel Guilet, he was persuaded to join the Beaux Arts Trio by pianist Menahem Pressler and cellist Bernard Greenhouse. During Cohen's time with the trio, dozens of recordings were released, including the complete piano trios of Ludwig van Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Dvořák, Brahms, as well as works by Chopin, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Charles Ives, and Dmitri Shostakovich. After twenty-three years with the group, he was succeeded as violinist by Ida Kavafian. His longest association was with the Marlboro Music Festival, where beginning in 1966 he taught for nearly forty years.