Yuga Cohler

As the youngest graduate of the Juilliard School’s course in orchestral conducting, 26-year-old Yuga Cohler is revolutionizing classical music through his incorporation of technology, popular culture, and other creative media into the concertgoing experience. He was recently appointed music director and conductor of the Young Musicians Foundation (YMF) Debut Orchestra, one of the foremost professional training orchestras in the country. As part of his artistic vision for YMF, Mr. Cohler has instituted The Great Music Series, a concert series which explores the elements common to massively popular music and works from the classical canon. The 2015/16 season sees the inaugural installation of this series: Yeethoven, a comparison of the works of Kanye West and Beethoven. A recipient of the Bruno Walter Memorial Scholarship, Mr. Cohler studied with New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert at the Juilliard School. There, he worked extensively with the Juilliard Orchestra and served as its assistant conductor under Itzhak Perlman. He continues to enjoy a close relationship with the group, having made his professional debut with them in 2013. Other orchestras with which Mr. Cohler has worked in various capacities include the Dallas, Baltimore, Fort Worth, New Jersey, and New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestras, and the New World and Danish National Symphonies. Among the accolades granted to Mr. Cohler are the Career Assistance Award from the Solti Foundation U.S., the Ansbacher Fellowship from the American Austrian Foundation, the Charles Schiff Conducting Award from the Juilliard School, and the David McCord Prize for Artistic Excellence from Harvard University. He has been awarded fellowships to some of the most prestigious musical institutions in the country, including the Aspen Music Festival and the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, and has additionally studied at the Tanglewood Music Center. A skilled interpreter of modern music, Mr. Cohler was selected by composer John Adams to perform a program of modern American orchestral music at Carnegie Hall, where the New York Times lauded his “strong rendition” of Elliott Carter’s Double Concerto. He currently serves as a Director of the Asia / America New Music Initiative, with whom he was a featured performer at the 2015 Beijing Modern Music Festival. Mr. Cohler is a summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, where he studied computer science. He first became a music director at the age of 20 when he assumed the helm of the Harvard Bach Society Orchestra. As an advocate for the integration of art music into mainstream American culture, Mr. Cohler has collaborated as both performer and lecturer with such forward-thinking institutions as Google, Groupmuse, and the Danbury Music Centre. Yuga Cohler is revolutionizing musical culture.