Anat Cohen Quotes
-
My initial training was on the keyboard - mainly the great American songbook. In junior high, during the day, I was a classical clarinetist, but after school, I played New Orleans jazz and big-band music.
-
With cab drivers, I always say I'm from Brazil. I don't say I'm from Israel. It's happened more than once that someone is blaming me for the government's policy. And I say, 'Listen, I live here. I'm a musician. I don't call the shots.'
-
Influences at home, including classical music, were not all specifically jazz, but the family radio was always on... So there was always some connection to American culture, to American music.
-
I think music is one of the clearest ways to connect between people of all differences.
-
I prefer to solve conflict with kindness. That's my first approach. If that doesn't work, there's always the alternative. I'm from Israel. I can tell a person what I think if I have to!
-
I feel like sometimes I get even more goofy onstage than I am offstage. I'm not trying to make the music less than what it is. Even if it's hard for me and I have to think about a lot of details, it's none of the audience's business. I don't want them to feel that I'm having a hard time.
-
I focused on the saxophone ever since high school. It wasn't until my album 'Poetica,' which I recorded in 2006, that I went back to the clarinet. It felt like it was waiting for me!
-
Clarinet is an incredible instrument. It's a great, expressive instrument.
-
Sometimes I get off stage, and I almost have no recollection of what happened. It's almost like a trance; it's very bizarre.
-
There's always this joke that I say in Israel: people don't really have discussions; they just try to convince the other people that they are wrong or they are right - they just try to impose their opinion on the others. Sometimes I think it's easier to avoid talking about things and just make music.
-
I could never really figure out why people would live in a kibbutz. I'm such a city girl.
-
I was focusing on sax while at Berklee, but then I started to play Brazilian choro and Colombian music. I was doing more folkloric stuff on the clarinet because it works better. Finally, I realized I was working more on the clarinet than the saxophone, and I started to feel more comfortable on it.
-
I definitely see myself as an international musician. When I play, I respect the source of the music, whether it's Cuban, Brazilian or Israeli. I try to bring that to all of the music I play. Music has no borders and no flags.
-
To me, music is a luminous experience. Whenever I'm immersed in it, life lights up for me, no matter what else is going on.
-
When I got into high school, clarinet was not really in fashion. Everybody had electric bands.
-
When I play the clarinet, I am 100 percent myself. It is as if it is part of my body. I can play whatever I think. Let me just read a melody and make it as sweet as I can.
-
My younger brother Avishai was my first influence. He picked up the trumpet, and I listened to him. The way he played - with the half valves and the smears - made me want to play like him.