bio

Jacob Cohen is a Brooklyn-based experimental cellist, instrument maker, visual artist, filmmaker and educator. He began playing the cello in 1995 and over the years has developed a unique improvisational style that grew out of his days as a street performer in New York City. Cohen’s music was featured in the 2014 film Foxcatcher which was nominated for 5 grammy awards. From 2014-2018 He ran a music program for youth incarcerated at Rikers Island Correctional Center. He brought his cello into the jail and played music with the youth, and also drew portraits of them. Over 500 of the portraits were exhibited at the Queens Museum in 2018 in a solo show titled “Dispatches from the Ghost Ship.” In 2020 he and a group of activists founded the Free Prakash Alliance with the goal of getting murder charges against Prakash Churaman dropped. At the age of 15 Churaman had been accused of a murder in Queens he did not commit and interrogated for hours before making a false confession with no lawyer present. All chargers against Churaman were dropped on June 8, 2022. Jacob is now running a music and art program at Crossroads Juvenile Center, an ACS-run secure detention facility in Brooklyn.