This Philadelphia-based composer was known primarily through his live synthesizer performances on classic Buchla equipment, his scores for dance and theater, and his musical collaborations. Charles Cohen began playing the rare Buchla Music Easel synthesizer in 1976, and became known as a master of the instrument. His improvised compositions and recordings were vibrant and joyous, ranging from quizzical abstract pieces to warmer melodic numbers. Like many other composer-performers, Cohen preferred live performance as the true musical experience, and performed at numerous electronic and avant-garde venues and festivals. However, German experimental techno label Morphine Records helped bring Cohen's work into the public eye, bringing much of his extensive archive to vinyl and CD for the first time. The year 2013 saw the vinyl release of Cohen's 2013 cassette Music for Dance and Theater, as well as Group Motion (two extended compositions from 1989) and The Middle Distance (various works from the '70s and '80s). All three LPs were released as a double CD with bonus tracks called A Retrospective in 2014. In 2015, Morphine released Brother I Prove You Wrong, a double-LP of new compositions. Cohen died of natural causes on September 29, 2017. ~ "Blue" Gene Tyranny & Paul Simpson, Rovi