Jonathan Cohen

Press

• London Handel Festival: L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato

  Mar 2025

  • You could light a bonfire and more with the gusto of Cohen’s musicians, whether beavering through Handel’s dancing rhythms or navigating the solo turns in the work’s many pictorial displays.

    • The Times
    • 10 March 2025

  • Cohen seized upon the score with relish, his keen dramatic instincts ensuring bright tempi while knowing just when to give his singers room to spread their wings. Arcangelo, their plush sound underpinned by chamber organ and two harpsichords, responded with crisp, spirited playing and noteworthy solo contributions...But the night belonged to Cohen. With Arcangelo lighting up the baroque interior of St George’s Hanover Square, Handel’s own parish church, you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife.

    • The Guardian
    • 09 March 2025

• Handel & Haydn Society

  Jordan Hall, Boston

  Dec 2022

  • Cohen achieved visceral excitement by exploring the subtle details that make the music sing. In concertos by Zelenka and Handel, he worked like a sculptor, shaping passages between the orchestral and solo forces, paying agile attention to every arc and turn.

    • ArtsFuse
    • 16 December 2022

• Alcina

  Glyndebourne Festival Opera

  Jul 2022

  • The accumulated power of the score is magnificently managed and driven by conductor Jonathan Cohen, with the old instruments of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in peak-period condition, dazzlingly pungent, light and airy, with a total sense of stylistic confidence. The production may be exhaustingly busy, but it entrances the audience, and provides Glyndebourne with another triumph in its sequence of Handel productions, certainly on the level of the famous Giulio Cesare back in 2005. This is the hit of the summer opera season so far.

    • The Telegraph
    • 03 July 2022

  • The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment play with considerable panache for Cohen.

    • The Guardian
    • 03 July 2022

  • Jonathan Cohen’s alert and lively conducting of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, whooping horns and all.

    • The Financial Times
    • 04 July 2022

• St Matthew Passion

  Royal Albert Hall, BBC Proms

  Sep 2021

  • Add to Arcangelo's voices and instruments (pictured below) a blazing constellation of British soloists, plus alert, vigorous but never unduly rushed direction from the ensemble's conductor-harpsichordist Jonathan Cohen, and this against-the-odds Proms season boasted another night to remember and to cherish. This evening was a special gift.

    • The Arts Desk
    • 10 September 2021

• Theordora, BBC Proms

  Royal Albert Hall

  Sep 2018

  • Cohen’s interpretation was notable for its austere beauty. Dark instrumental textures added immeasurably to the sombre mood, while Arcangelo’s choir, carefully differentiating between Roman hedonism and Christian severity, sounded glorious, despite the occasional blurring of detail in the echoey acoustic. Cohen’s judgment of the work’s measured dramatic momentum was wonderfully assured

    • The Guardian
    • 10 September 2018

• The Scottish Ensemble

  St Giles Cathedral Edinburgh

  Oct 2019

  • Most striking, however, was the remarkable sense of controlled flamboyance from the Ensemble across both venues, under guest director Jonathan Cohen, who supplied some wonderfully florid contributions from the harpsichord, driving things on with abundant enthusiasm. This was high-energy playing, fresh and volatile.

    • The Scotsman
    • 18 October 2019

• St Paul Chamber Orchestra

  St Paul, US

  Apr 2017

  • ...a scaled-down SPCO of 10 string players traced the sparely written textures of Pergolesi's intimate accompaniment. Cohen probed and guided the musicians from a mellow chamber organ, distilling an atmosphere of mournful contemplation and private grieving. Cohen, the most recent addition to the SPCO's roster of artistic partners, earlier had shown why he is renowned as a specialist in baroque music, in a probing, sensually shaped reading of Locatelli's Concerto Grosso in E-flat, Op. 7

    • Star Tribune
    • 16 April 2017