Mary Cohen
Mary studied violin, piano, chamber music and composition at the Royal College of Music, where she won many of the major prizes. After several years in the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, she set up the teaching practice that has become a research base for her educational projects. Mary has an international reputation as an educational composer (with over fifty publications in print), and her music is set by the major examining bodies world-wide. Many of her publications centre round the technical requirements specific to particular stages of string playing; as well as violin and piano, she also plays the viola and cello. Mary regularly gives seminars both in this country and abroad. She is also a skilled editor, and frequently in demand for her ability to create commissioning templates for exact technical requirements. Since 2001 she has worked on the Associated Board’s innovative Music Medal project, for which she is both technical consultant and composer. Mary is passionate about string chamber music, which she introduces from the very first term of instrumental lessons. She founded and runs String Quartets From Scratch (SQFS), an after school hours club for chamber music for 7 –18 year olds, for which she has written a great deal of ensemble material. As part of the SQFS initiative, for the last decade Mary has run viola and cello ‘starter’ projects alongside her normal violin teaching practice. By popular demand, there is also a weekly parents’ quartet session, and a SQFS plus project for occasional piano trios, flute quartets etc. As both composer and workshop director, Mary has worked with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Education Department.. She has also worked with leading contemporary composers at the Associated Board, Faber Music, and in the Resonance project for Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.
