‘Do the best you can with the time you have!’ — Ron Cohen Mann
Ron Cohen Mann (BMus’12), oboist and English hornist has been listed to CBC’s “30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians under 30” this year!
“Oboes are so fussy,” says Cohen Mann, and he would know: his own oboe cracked four times during the 2018-19 season due to changes in humidity and temperature. And yet, he concedes, “I truly love what I do and wouldn’t trade it for anything.” A graduate of Yale, Mannes College and UBC, Cohen Mann is currently based in Toronto, where he’s busy performing and teaching. Lately, he’s been creating fun tutorials on Instagram and YouTube, carving a space for himself as the Jonathan Van Ness of the oboe.”I hope that I can make a positive impact through these platforms.”
He loves New York, having made his Carnegie Hall debut as part of the Yale in New York series and played Carl Nielsen’s Wind Quintet at Jazz for Lincoln Centre. But for his honeymoon, he and his husband, Peter, will likely skip NYC and head to Barcelona when international travel resumes. (Their wedding was delayed by COVID-19, but finally took place on July 29.)
For inspiration, Cohen Mann turns to mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato (“her tone, her vibrato, her phrasing and her meticulous storytelling”) and, lately, Franz Schubert (“his music is simple but has so much depth to it”). Fun fact: he still knows all the words to Britney Spears’ Oops!… I Did It Again, the first record he owned.
Congratulations, Ron!
