Pablo Cohen, professor in the Ithaca College Department of Music Performance, has performed across the globe at iconic venues like Carnegie Hall, earned permanent residency in the United States based on extraordinary talent and recorded multiple compositions and solo albums. However, Cohen said he is most proud of his job at IC.
Since he started teaching at IC in 1996, Cohen has worked to share music from Latin America and help students learn the art of playing guitar.
Cohen said he was born into a musical family in Buenos Aires, Argentina and was captivated by the guitar from the time he was in elementary school. He studied guitar with his uncle before earning a performance degree from a conservatory. Cohen heard that the U.S. was the best place to develop as a serious musician, so he applied to graduate school programs and started learning English.
“That’s the beauty of, in a way, not being in such a developed country, so you get more room to wonder,” Cohen said. “[I] wanted to get experience and share and go for it. … It was that powerful, that youth dream. It really lighted up the next 20 years or more.”
Cohen said he was accepted to and offered a graduate assistantship at Temple University, and came to the U.S. in 1986. Cohen said Temple’s faculty and administrators were very understanding as he tried to learn English and adjust to a new country. They also helped him arrange his master’s and doctoral coursework around his performances across Philadelphia, Trinidad, Tobago, Korea, Panama, Martinique, Puerto Rico, New York City and other locations.
Cohen started teaching at Mansfield University before seeing a job posting at IC. Cohen said he already knew of the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance’s excellent reputation before he interviewed for the position. Cohen said after he attended a concert on campus and listened to a recorded chorale performance, he was further blown away by the quality of students’ performances. Cohen said receiving the call with a job offer to teach at IC was one of the best moments of his life.
“I’m so grateful, because eventually my career took me to a place like Ithaca, which is cosmopolitan, which is international, which is forward–thinking,” Cohen said. “It could have been another year, another day, another time I didn’t see the call for the position … [but] the togetherness of things that happen for a reason. … I don’t think it was a coincidence, me being here.”
Cohen said he has taught courses like music of Latin America, music of the Baroque, secondary guitar and chamber music, in addition to private lessons and leading the guitar ensemble.
Cohen said he works hard to strengthen his students’ musical literacy and virtuosic ability while also working to understand them as whole people, beyond their instrumental abilities. He said he wants students to avoid putting pressure on themselves to meet traditional ideas of being a musician and instead see the guitar as a friend.
“The kids, [they] light up my life,” Cohen said. “Thanks to them, I developed the largest catalog of dad jokes that you can imagine, and it was through … the middle of laughing that we address the next few bars of the piece … [and] at the end, it turned out the guitar lesson is a joy.”
Cohen said he is extremely grateful for his colleagues from MTD, who appreciated the new styles of Latin American music that he brought to IC and supported his professional career. Cohen’s colleagues helped him produce three solo recordings — including “La Casa,” which received a gold medal from the Global Music Awards.
Cohen said Arthur Ostrander, dean emeritus of the School of Music, gave him the freedom and support to host the Guitar Foundation of America’s International Convention and Competition on IC’s campus in 2009. Ostrander also gave Cohen opportunities to represent IC on performance tours and outreach concerts for IC donors and alumni, and encouraged Cohen’s dream of coordinating a guitar festival. Cohen said the Winter Guitar Festival started in 1999 and drew in the world’s top guitarists for 12 years.
Cohen said he has served on Faculty Council and all campus search committees. He has also brought students to perform at retirement communities across the area.
Cohen said he and his wife plan to move to South America in mid-September, and split time between Argentina and his wife’s home country, Brazil, but they plan to visit Ithaca often. Cohen said that stepping away from teaching guitar will be difficult, but he is excited to travel and spend time with his mother.
“Life is not eternal,” Cohen said. “Time passes by, so music will always be there. … You don’t stop looking at things from the musician’s perspective, whether you play or no play. It’s a way of being.”
