Eitan Cohen
Eitan Cohen was born in Ramat Gan, Israel to an American father and Iraqi mother. This multinational background has greatly contributed to his eclectic and diverse vocal music repertoire.
Eitan is a high-lyric tenor, defined as a musician with, “a warm graceful voice with a bright, full timbre. strong but not heavy and can be heard over an orchestra”. Famed lyric tenors include Jose Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti.
His performance career started primarily in regional musical theater, including three characters in Little Shop of Horrors, Bernardo in West Side Story, and solo/duet performances from Fiddler on the Roof and Phantom of the Opera. His most recent role was that of butler Winfrow Adams in Temple Israel of Ridgewood's Murder Mystery evening.
In his youth, Eitan performed several original operettas under the direction of Brenda Alpar, a graduate of Julliard. Eitan later studied voice in Staten Island with Kay Standifer and then continued his musical education at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ under Laura Brooks Rice, the second cover for well-known dramatic soprano Jessye Norman at the Metropolitan Opera in NYC. His vocal performances over those years include Handel's ”Friendship and Song”, Haydn's “Kyrie Eleison”, Vivaldi's “Magnificat”, and Mozart's “Dans un Bois Solitaire”, “Mass in C Major”, and “Vesperae Solennes De Confessore”. Eitan has performed in such venues as the World Financial Center, Avery Fisher Hall, and Carnegie Hall.
In 1993, he returned to Israel to join the IDF's Lehakat Ha'Rabbanut Ha'Tzvait, the rabbinical choir of the Israel Defense Forces, under the leadership of famed musical arranger, Mona Rosenblum, best known for his hit Moshiach. During his military service, Eitan had the opportunity to perform in front of many dignitaries including the late Yizhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, Bibi Netanyahu, Shimon Peres, and Ehud Olmert. He was also a soloist for a portion of “Oseh Shalom Bimromav” during a live televised broadcast.
Eitan sang with both the Rahway Jerseyairres and the Princeton Garden Statesmen, members of the Barbershop Harmony Society, historically known as SPEBSQSA, or the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America, during the 2006-2008 seasons.
His upbringing has offered him the opportunity to learn songs in Hebrew, English, Latin, French, Yiddish, and Arabic. Over the past several years, Eitan has focused on Jewish music, currently performing with regional bandleaders including Izzy Kieffer, Eitan Zehavi (Shalom Orchestra), Mike Aviv, and Tuvia Zimber.