Louis Cohen (conductor)

Louis Cohen (born 1893 or 1894; died 25 November, 1956) was a British violinist and conductor.

He was born in Liverpool, and trained at the Liverpool College of Music and the Royal Manchester College of Music. After overseas service in World War I he joined the Hallé Orchestra. In 1932 he formed the Merseyside Symphony Orchestra, which later formed the basis of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society's permanent orchestra, of which Cohen was a frequent guest conductor.

Cohen conducted the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, the forerunner of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, for three seasons after World War II. His first concert in Jerusalem, on May 7 1945, coincided with the announcement of the German surrender. He programmed some English works including Elgar’s "Enigma" Variations which were played not only in the three main towns of Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel-Aviv, but in some of the agricultural settlements. Later programmes included Elgar's Serenade for strings, Bax's "Tintagel", Delius's "On Hearing the first Cuckoo in Spring"; Symphonies in his programmes included Mozart’s "Haffner", Tchaikovsky's fourth, Dvořák's "New World", Prokofiev's "Classical", Beethoven’s fifth and Brahms’s fourth.

Louis Cohen died in Liverpool at the age of 62.

References

*"The Times" obituary notice, Tuesday, 27 November 1956, page 13.
*"The Musical Times", July 1945, pp 216-217.