| Stephen Cohen is
a performing artist, composer, guitarist, band leader, visual artist and award-winning
songwriter. His newest CD,
Here Comes the Band, is a children's
album, suitable for adults, and vice versa. It includes a 20
page illustrated booklet with paintings and drawings by Christopher
Shotola-Hardt and lyrics and activities. |
 |
His first album, on vinyl, The
Tree People, which he recorded in 1979 in Eugene, has been
rediscovered around the world and was reissued as a CD by Tiliqua Records of Japan in 2006 and as a vinyl
record by
Guerssen
Records
of Spain in 2008. The Tree People have signed with
Guerssen
Records who are releasing a second Tree
People album, Human Voices, from 1984, as a CD and vinyl
record on June 1st, 2009. and will release a third, new Tree People
record in 2010.
The Numero Group
has released a compilation of acoustic guitar music from the 60's and
70's which includes Stephen's solo guitar piece, No More School,
from the first Tree People album.
Stephen has created a
blog (treepeoplechronicles.blogspot.com) documenting
the history and new interest in that album.
Stephen's CD,
Stephen and
the Talk Talk Band , was released in 2004.
Hear
samples from this CD.
Stephen's song It's My Story,
from Stephen and the Talk Talk Band, is the closing piece in the
sound track of the
Freedom Center video which was featured on the Forbes Magazine web
site. The song will also be featured
in The
Story Pouch, a computer animated film by Todd Kesterson,
now in production in Oregon. Two songs from his previous CD,
real life and fiction,
have been released as a 7" vinyl,
45 rpm single in the United Kingdom by Ethbo Music. Songs and
instrumental pieces from his recordings have received radio play
worldwide.
Other recordings include Many Hats, Bridges of This
Town, (a one song CD about the bridges of Portland in which
for the CD release event for Bridges of This Town. Stephen
had his audience meet him on the esplanade under the Steel Bridge
and then led everyone to a secret location overlooking the Portland
bridges where he performed the song), and The Golden Desert
(a recording of desert sounds in the New Directions series
Enviromusic for which Stephen composed and recorded guitar and
percussion music on commission). Stephen has also produced 5
CDs of original music by young people from a series of residencies
over the last 7 years in which he assists youth in creating instruments
out of recycled and found objects, helps them compose music and
lyrics, and produces a CD of the results.
Click here to
hear Bridges of This Town and see a virtual tour of the
Morrison Bridge.
(This page will take
a while to load..not recommended for dial-up users.)
Watch closely and you'll see Stephen in the bridge tour.
The National Public Radio radio show, Car Talk, featured Stephen's song, Beat-up Borrowed Car on the
11/17/2007 show. You can listen to the
show (the
song is in segment 3) or hear the whole song
here.
Stephen's performances across the United States include the
Philadelphia
Folk Festival, the Kerrville
New Folk Awards Concert in Texas, First Night (New Year's Festival)
in Providence (R.I.), the Juan de Fuca Festival (Port Angeles,
Washington), the Arts in Nature Festival (West Seattle), the
Northwest Folklife Festival (Seattle), the Coffee Gallery Backstage
(Altadena, Ca..), Puck Live (Doylstown, PA), ArtMusic Coffeehouse House
Concert Series( East Strousberg, PA) the Acoustic Roots Concert series (Fredericksburg,
Va.), the Bitter End (New York City), the Sidewalk Café
(New York City), the Sanctuary Concerts (Berkeley Heights, N.J.);
the Long Island Children's Museum (Garden City, N.Y.), the Please Touch Museum (Philadelphia);
the Bay Area Discovery Museum (Sausalito, CA) the workshop, Exploring Sculptural Percussion at the Mendocino
(CA) Art Center, the workshop, Outside the Box, Alternatives
in Marketing and Performance at the International Folk Alliance
Conference in Nashville in 2003; live radio performances and
interviews on Cross Tracks (Worcester, Ma.), Acoustic Eclectic
(WDIY, Bethlehem, Pa.), Contours (WNTI, New Jersey), Sonarchy
Radio (Seattle), Art Focus (KBOO, Portland); and countless concerts,
performances, workshops, and residencies in his home state of
Oregon including the Stephen and the Talk Talk Band concert
he produced at the Old Church in Portland in 2004, the Rain
Songs concert he produced in the rainy season of 2003 (where
Stephen and several Portland bands and artists performed songs
about rain at the Community Music Center in Portland), and in
past years Art in the Arboretum and Art in the Pearl. He was
featured in a story on Oregon Public Broadcasting's Art Beat
show in 2002 about his residency at Wilsonville
High School, where he worked with a special education class
and several music and art students to produce a CD, Junk Jam
and a performance at the Wilsonville Festival of Arts. One
of the songs created was
You
Need to Get to Know Me.
Stephen has won several national song writing awards, including
an award at the prestigious Kerrville
Folk Festival in Texas in 2000, a first place lyricist award
for his song thomas voted by the readers of Songwriter's Monthly
in 1997, and an Outstanding Achievement in Songwriting Award
by the Songwriters Resource Network in 2001. He received a grant
from the Puffin Foundation of New Jersey for a homeless and transitional
youth recording project he did in 2003 with P: EAR of Portland.
That project was also funded by the Regional Arts and Culture
Council of Portland, and he is on their Neighborhood Arts and
their RAC Fund artist presenters roster. He is on Northwest on
Tour, the juried roster of performing artists produced by Arts
Northwest, and he is on the Artists in Education roster of the
Salem (Oregon) Arts Association.
Stephen's
all star guitar, a visual art piece he made from shoe parts, copper, bronze, silver
and used guitar strings, was part of the Shoes: The Sole of
Humanity exhibition at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center
in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. His racket guitar, a hybrid instrument
he made from guitar and tennis racket parts, acrylics and metals,
was shown at the Art About Music exhibit at the Maude
Kerns Art Center in Eugene, Oregon in the summer of 2003.
Stephen was born in Pawtucket,
Rhode Island where he started on the jazz trombone at twelve,
then taught himself guitar and starting composing music and writing
songs at fourteen. Stephen attended Brandeis University in Waltham,
Massachusetts for 3 years as a young man before leaving school
to travel across the country. He lived in and around Santa Fe,
New Mexico for four years, where he performed at local coffeehouses,
clubs and restaurants. He then moved to Eugene where he lived
for 18 years, performing with his ensemble The Tree People
which featured acoustic guitar, voice, percussion, recorder
and flute, recording several albums, and raising two sons (one
of whom, Abe Cohen, is now a singer, guitarist and songwriter
with the Portland band Maggie's Choice). He also went
back to school and received a Bachelor's Degree in Art at the
University of Oregon in 1982. Much of his time at the University
was spent in the Jewelry and Metalsmith studio where he made
pins and sculptures on musical themes with various metals and
used guitar strings. Other art students asked to buy some of
these creations, inspiring Stephen to place and sell these pieces
at art fairs and galleries. He then merged his
visual
art into his performing art by using his visual art as part
of his stage set with the original sculptural percussion that
he makes from metals, woods and found objects.
Stephen also did weekly music groups at The Child Center in Springfield
with severely disturbed children. These interactive sessions
were called "Big Music", and included children ages
4 to 12, teachers, and therapists (and even the janitor joined
in on bass guitar), and it was here that Stephen started developing
some of the songs, ideas and performance strategies that he uses
now in his interactive performances for
children.
Stephen has lived in Portland
since1996, where he continues to compose music, write songs,
and to develop as a guitarist, and he continues to make and find
new instruments to play as well. He performs regionally and nationally,
and continues to record, to collaborate with other artists, and
to present workshops and residencies in the community while working
on new projects.
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