Joel Cohen

Joel Cohen

Joel Cohen, (born 1942) is an American musician specializing in early music repertoires. Joel graduated Classical High school in Providence, R.I. in 1959. He then graduated from Brown University in 1963. He continued graduate education at Harvard University. From 1968 to 2008 he was the director of the Boston Camerata, generally considered to be the pre-eminent American early music ensemble. He remains connected to the Boston Camerata as Music Director Emeritus. Cohen founded the Camerata Mediterranea in 1990 and incorporated it as a nonprofit research institute in France in 2007 . He performs on lute and guitar and sings, but is best known as an organizer and creator of concert programs and sound recordings. In recent years Cohen's research and performance activities have centered on early American repertoires (including Shaker song), as well as southern European repertoires of the Middle Ages. Many of his projects in this latter category involve collaboration with Middle Eastern musicians (see below).

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