“By far one of the most magnificent artists in the world-beat arena, is named Michal Cohen.” (J-Sin, Smother)
Her performing experience includes Koerner Hall, Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, Jewish History Museum, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Symphony Space, Scullers, Joe’s Pub, Satalla, Pianos, and the Knitting Factory. She has toured widely; Avivir festival, Tamaulipas Folk Festival, and Del Desierto World Festival in Mexico, Hudson River Music Festival, CKCU Ottawa Folk Festival, extended tours with different bands in U.S.A., Vietnam, Philippines, Hong Kong, and in Canada, The Brighton Ethnic Festival, the NYANA festival, etc.
Her range extends from ancient Yemenite songs through to contemporary. Michal has been collaborating with composers like, Meredith Monk, Uri Caine, Yuval Ron w/ Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, DJ Cheb I Sabbah, Jazzhole, Avi Elbaz, Guillermo Nojechowicz, Frank London, Alon Yavnai, Stefan Bauer and Vitold Rek. Michal has composed and performed for Ofri Cnaani’s video-arts titled “Sota” and “Pathos”. Her vocals have appeared on the award winning documentary titled “souvenirs” by Shahar Cohen and Halil Efrat, as well as “Historias Minimas”, by Carlos Sorin, and Pearl Gluck’s “Divan”. She was featured in a program of original electronic music in the German capital – Berlin, on NPR, WMRD-AM, Forward, WHRV, WUST-AM, PBS, Galatz, 88FM, and the ‘Voice of Music’. For the last year Michal have been broadcasting her radio show on vocalists from around the world.
Besides English, Yemenite, and Hebrew, Michal has sung in Polish, Bulgarian, Spanish, French, Turkish, Yiddish and Portuguese. She is the recipient of a “Finalist” and of two “Honorable Mentions” from the John Lennon Songwriting Contest in 2000 and 2002, as well as The Vocal-Jazz Cleo Laine Award.
After studying at Rimon College of Music in Israel, Michal arrived in the U.S. with a scholarship at the Berklee College of Music, and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2000. Here she has been studying with Jeannette LoVetri, Theo Bleckmann, Luciana Souza, Kevin Mahogany, Marlon Saunders, Bob Stollof, and Tal Freiberg. She has participated in workshops by Meredith Monk, Sheila Jordan, Mark Murphy, Peter Eldridge, and Dominique Eade. She is a certified teacher in Somatic Voicework(TM)-The Lovetri Method from Shenandoah University, and was studying Estill Method with Dorte Hyldstrup in Berlin.