Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen filed this wonderful dispatch from onboard the Shanghai to Beijing bullet train, on tour with TEC as Rinaldo in October 2025.
Aryeh has chosen the 2014 disc of Handel arias with Alice Coote.
“I began my undergraduate studies at Princeton as a public policy major, but the director of choral activities, Gabriel Crouch, heard my vocal potential and slowly nudged me towards this career. I wouldn’t be here today without the guidance and encouragement that he offered me. He quickly told me about his brother who’s quite a wonderful cellist by the name of Joseph Crouch, principal cellist of The English Concert.
And so we began going to TEC’s Carnegie Hall performances together each year. In 2014, I was truly awed by the performance of Alcina. It is an afternoon that will always stay with me.
I was deeply inspired by the full performance, and Alice Coote’s performance as Ruggiero swept me away. I immediately found a copy of this then-new album, and I listened to the renditions of the Alcina arias over and over, deciding to programme them on my undergraduate senior recital (alongside a few gems from Rinaldo, making this tour’s role debut as Rinaldo very special indeed).
The emotional immediacy and dramatic vibrancy of The English Concert’s playing, Maestro Harry’s always spirited and supportive musical direction, and Coote’s gorgeous and distinctive vocal colour, combine to take me on a journey every time that I return to this special recording!”
Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen filed this wonderful dispatch from onboard the Shanghai to Beijing bullet train, on tour with TEC as Rinaldo in October 2025.
