Йотам Коен

Haifa's symphony orchestra engaged Yotam Cohen as soloist on 14 July 1999, in a concert he shared with Ella Rosner Zeva. Born on Kibbutz Eilon in the Western Galilee, he played volleyball in the top Israeli division and captained the national youth team before studying singing at the Academy of Music in Tel Aviv and afterwards in Milan, London and Budapest; the Israeli Opera engaged him while he was still a student. As a soloist of that house he has sung more than thirty leading roles in seven languages - Don Ottavio, Belmonte and Tamino, Edgardo and Nemorino, the Duke, Alfredo and Macduff, Rodolfo, Pinkerton and Des Grieux, Don Jose, Canio, Turiddu, Lensky - and has appeared in Munich, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Budapest, Rome, Naples and Kyiv. Six discs carry his voice, among them opera arias, art song, the Misa Criolla and Russian romances. He often sings with his wife, the soprano Ira Bertman.