Just before oboist Ron Cohen Mann was scheduled to perform at Temple Sinai last spring, he had a bicycle accident that left him with a broken jaw and fractured ear canals.
Completely recovered and playing better than ever, Cohen Mann, winner of the 2015 Ben Steinberg Musical Legacy Award, is looking forward to his rescheduled recital at the temple on Feb. 2.
Cohen Mann, who lives in New Haven, Conn., was riding his bike on the way to teach when a car ran him off the road, exactly a week before he was supposed to perform in Toronto last May. “I flew over the handlebars and landed on my chin,” he said.
The question of whether he would be able to play the oboe as well as he had before the accident never entered his mind, he said. He added that he was encouraged by support he got from a friend, Elliot Beck, a percussionist in the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, who had a bad bicycle accident and returned to performing.
For a month after the accident, Cohen Mann was unable to eat any solid food. “I was just craving a veggie burger and fries,” he said. His recovery took another two months, and by last September, he was able to perform again.
Returning to the Yale School of Music in New Haven last September, where he’s studying for an artists diploma, he found that several professors, unaware of his accident, remarked on how well he was playing.
“I had three, four professors say that they thought I improved a lot over the summer. That’s when I quit playing for the most part. I played mostly in the last month before school.”
Israeli-born, Cohen Mann, 24, lived in the Netherlands until he was 12, when he and his family moved to Vancouver. He picked up the oboe at age 14.
“When I started oboe, I took it pretty seriously,” he said, adding that his first teacher was Roger Cole, the principal oboist for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. At the time, Cohen Mann didn’t know where the oboe would lead him, but he said he did have dreams of becoming a professional oboist. He joined Vancouver’s Youth Orchestra, which he said was his “first opportunity to play with talented colleagues who ended up studying at conservatories and universities.”
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Cohen Mann has performed with the Manhattan Symphonie, L’Orchestre de la Francophonie, the National Academy Orchestra of Canada and the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra, among others, and with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Koerner Hall in Toronto, and Maison Symphonique in Montreal. Juilliard-trained pianist Benjamin Smith accompanies Cohen Mann at the Temple Sinai recital.
The program includes two fantasy pieces by Carl Nielsen and Hebrew Melody, Opus 33, by Russian composer Joseph Achron. “It’s been recorded by every Jewish violinist ever. I’m looking forward to doing the oboe version I’m working on,” Cohen Mann said.
Also on the program are Temporal Variations by Britten, the Oboe Concerto by Mozart and a concertina for oboe by Johann Wenzel Kalliwoda, an emotional, romantic work.
Upcoming for Cohen Mann is a recital on March 16 at the Unitarian Church of Vancouver, 949 West 49th Ave, Vancouver. He’s touring the Baltic countries with the Yale Schola Cantorum from June 4 to 11.
For more information about Cohen Mann’s Feb. 2 recital, free and open to the public, at 8 p.m. at Temple Sinai, click here. For more information about Cohen Mann, visit Oboe Ron.