23-year-old American countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen is one of opera’s most promising rising stars. In his breakout 2016-2017 season, he was awarded the Grand Prize of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and was the recipient of a Sara Tucker Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation, First Prize winner of the Houston Grand Opera Eleanor McCollum Competition, and winner of the Irvin Scherzer Award from the George London Foundation. Performances of the season included the world premiere of Kenneth Fuchs’ Poems of Life with the Virginia Symphony, conducted by JoAnn Falletta, which he records with the London Symphony Orchestra for commercial release in 2018, and concerts with Chicago’s Newberry Consort. Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen participated in the Merola Opera Program at San Francisco Opera in 2016, and, in the summer of 2017, he joined Wolf Trap Opera as a Studio Artist for a production of Philip Glass and Robert Moran’s The Juniper Tree.

Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen becomes the first countertenor in the history of the Houston Grand Opera Studio, when he joins the company for the 2017-18 season; his performances include the roles of Nireno in Handel’s Giulio Cesare and Second Maid in Strauss’ Elektra both under the baton of Music Director Patrick Summers. He joins the American Bach Soloists for Handel’s Messiah in San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral, and he gives programs of Bach and Handel with Ars Lyrica Houston.

Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen made his European debut at the Theater an der Wien singing Timante in Gluck’s *Demofonte* with Baroque ensemble Il Complesso Barocco, under the baton of Alan Curtis. His opera roles also include Nerone and Ottone in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, Raphael (The Angel) in Jonathan Dove’s Tobias and the Angel, and Cefalo in Cavalli’s Gli Amori di Apollo e Dafne. The artist’s experience in the world of sacred music is no less impressive and highlights include serving as the alto soloist in Bach’s *Magnificat* with the Leipzig Barockorchester in the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, Germany.

Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen was granted a Bachelor’s degree in History from Princeton University (with a concentration in Intellectual and Cultural History) and earned academic certificates in Vocal Performance and Judaic Studies. During his senior year, he became the first singer in a decade to win the Princeton University Concerto Competition and he was awarded the Isidore and Helen Sacks Memorial Prize for extraordinary achievement in the arts, granted each year by Princeton University to the student of greatest promise in the performance of classical music. His teachers include Dr. Robert C. White, Jr. and Deborah Birnbaum in New York and Max van Egmond in Amsterdam.