Beyond Baroque: Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen's "Uncharted" Journey
Photo Credit: Jiyang Chen
Rising star countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen is heading to a sold-out Carnegie Hall debut with his recital tour Uncharted. The program weaves together an ambitious tapestry of German lieder never before recorded by a countertenor, Jewish liturgical music that shaped his earliest musical memories, and the New York premiere of a new song cycle by Jake Heggie set to Margaret Atwood’s climate-focused poetry.
Alongside his longtime collaborator John Churchwell, Head of Music at San Francisco Opera, Cohen presents a deeply personal 100-minute journey that showcases his distinctive warm tone across centuries and styles. From Korngold’s prophetic Songs of Farewell to works by Black American composers Leslie Adams and Florence Price, the program challenges traditional expectations of the countertenor voice while celebrating nature, love, and spiritual connection. We caught up with Cohen just after his first stop in Minnesota to discuss everything from artistic control to impending fatherhood.
Photo Credit: Jiyang Chen
1/ How did your first concert of the tour in Minnesota go?
Really, really well. We’re relieved and excited, and ready to bring it to Carnegie Hall.
2/ You recently recorded and released German repertoire. Is that the main part of the recital program?
Exactly. The recital program is about half music from the Uncharted CD, and then the other half is a mix. We have a brand new song cycle world premiere by Jake Heggie that was written to go alongside this German repertoire, and then a couple of other sets of just my favorite music to sing, because this is my debut American recital tour.
3/ Does that mean before this you were always singing operas and concerts?
This is my first time doing solo recitals, me and piano, where I get to have full artistic control. That's part of what I love about doing recitals — I get to sing the music that I love singing the most, and that my pianist, John Churchwell, and I love performing the most. It’s just up to us. So that makes it especially special to choose the music that we enjoy the most and share that with audiences.
4/ How long have you been working with John?
We’ve known each other a long time. He’s Head of Music at San Francisco Opera, and we first met when I was in the Merola Opera Program nine years ago. That’s when I first had coachings with him, and we really hit it off, personally and professionally. Our musical sensibilities were really well paired, and we started performing some of this music that we’re doing on this tour all those years ago. We’ve been slowly working up this program, and it feels like a really special culmination to have recorded and released this album together and to now be going to Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center — seven cities around America, in total.
5/ How do you decide when you’re ready to present this sort of full soloist concert?
We recorded the album two years ago, in January 2023, and it was something I first started planning and thinking about during the pandemic, when I was home and wasn’t performing. So it’s really been many years in the making. It just has sort of come about naturally. I knew I wanted to make a solo CD of song repertoire. I knew it was this repertoire I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to do it with John. It never felt like a question — it just felt like the right time, the right place, the right people. A big impetus for making the recording was to give us the opportunity to do a tour like this. And now it’s sort of in the works to take it to Europe as well.
6/ Could you please walk us through the repertoire and some things you’d like to highlight?
The first set is selections from Korngold’s Abschiedslieder (Songs of Farewell). These are beautiful songs that John first brought to me a few years ago. Korngold’s music has this incredible dreaminess, richness, density, and fullness. Once I started digging into his music, I looked into his personal story, and I felt this really strong resonance, because he was a Jew living in Europe who had to escape and flee the Holocaust and start over in America. He went on to become this famous Hollywood composer and won Oscars. These are songs he wrote 20 years before he left Europe that are foreshadowing this farewell.
Then we do a set of songs by Black American composers and one piece by Handel that pairs beautifully with them — they’re sort of three prayers. There’s “Prayer” by Leslie Adams with poetry by Langston Hughes, “Sunset” by Florence Price, and “O Lord, Whose Mercies Numberless” from Handel’s Saul.
Then we have our second set of German lieder from the CD, which is three songs — one by Clara Schumann and two by Brahms — that are three of my absolute favorite songs from the album. Brahms and Clara Schumann had this sort of mysterious relationship, and these songs tell a deep story about love lost and the emotions that come with that. The last song of that set is probably my favorite lieder piece of all time, which is “Unbewegte laue Luft” by Brahms.
We end the first half with a few Jewish pieces — Jewish prayers that I first found my voice singing. It’s “Avinu Malkeinu” by Max Janowski, this gorgeous setting of the high holiday prayer made famous by Barbra Streisand, and then the Kaddish by Ravel. My very first solo singing was of this sort of music in synagogues when I was a kid.
The second half has two bigger sets. The first one is the Jake Heggie cycle, which is three songs that he wrote for us based on poetry by Margaret Atwood, reflecting upon climate change, nature, and Earth’s message to us. There’s also a fun side of nature — a cicada love song that’s the middle of the three.
Then we close the program with Schumann’s Liederkreis Opus 39, this beautiful cycle that we recorded in full on the album. It’s 12 short songs that have this amazing journey through love, nature, and the mystery of the woods. The throughline is really the energy of the universe around us in our own journey through that.
6/ Who came up with the idea of creating the Jake Heggie songs?
I’ve always wanted Jake to write something for me, and this tour was the natural time. We talked about what feels personal to me, and I mentioned nature and the climate. Then he had the idea — “Oh, I know Margaret [Atwood] has some amazing poetry on these topics. What if we go ask her?” And she said “Absolutely, please take your pick.” And Jake assembled this gorgeous set. It’ll be the New York premiere, as we just gave the world premiere yesterday in Minnesota. They were very well received. Jake’s opera Moby-Dick is premiering at the Met in a couple of weeks as well, so it’s a big moment for Jake.
7/ Regarding the Jewish prayers — do you sing them the same way as classical music, or do you go back to your roots of singing in synagogues?
It’s kind of a hybrid, which is what makes it so special. Stylistically, I’m definitely singing a little bit more like I did in synagogue, but with my classical training. When I think of these pieces, it’s like the deepest part of my musical soul coming to life, because they’re pieces that I’ve known my entire life — even before I was born, I was hearing them in the womb. Part of why I love this setting of the Kaddish is because it’s by Ravel, who was not Jewish but was commissioned by a Jewish soprano. He wrote a beautiful setting of this central Jewish prayer. It has the traditional Jewish musical modes brought to life, but it’s in this classical style, so it really bridges that divide. I think it’ll feel a little bit familiar to Jewish audience members, but it also will feel very familiar to everyone else.
8/ Audience members know you from great countertenor roles like Caesar. What would you like to present about your personal identity as a soloist through this tour?
I love singing modern operas and Baroque operas on the opera stage and in concert — truly, it‘s my bread and butter and I love it. It feels so natural to me. But I also love this romantic music. As countertenors, we sing music right up to 1750 and then from 1950 onwards, but there’s 200 years in the middle. It was romantic opera that I first fell in love with — Puccini and Verdi. It wasn’t Handel and Britten. I soon fell in love with those composers as well, but I’ve always had this love for romantic music, and my voice feels very well suited to these types of romantic works: it’s a little bit rounder and warmer than many countertenors. It’s also part of a personal project in breaking down the walls a little bit of what people expect from countertenors. Here I am presenting an hour and 40-minute recital, and there’s two minutes of Handel on it — that’s it. And there’s some new music with Jake Heggie’s premiere, but then most of it is music from this period in between that you might not expect.
Photo Credit: Jiyang Chen
9/ Would you like to share about any upcoming shows or events?
Carnegie Hall has already sold out — it sold out in less than an hour, apparently! But we’ve got this tour - heading to DC and Houston over the next week, and then my wife is expecting our first child this spring. We’re very excited, so I’ll be home for a few months this spring; I’d originally had some opera and concerts planned in Europe. Then I’ll be making my debut at the Salzburg Festival this summer. Next season hasn’t been announced yet, but I’ll be doing a couple of my biggest dream roles that I have admired for a very, very long time. We’re doing four dates now on the tour, and then we’ll be doing three more recitals in the fall around the country. Nowhere is going to be more special than Carnegie Hall, for obvious reasons. I was born and raised in New York, so it’s going to be full of family, friends, and loved ones. It’s going to be very meaningful. I’m nervous and excited.
-interview by Chloe Yang