Gilad Cohen & Ronvé O’Daniel
Gilad Cohen is an active composer, performer, and theorist in genres including concert music, rock, and music for theater. Ronvé O’Daniel is an award-winning songwriter, playwright, actor, director, and hip-hop recording artist. For their Recomposing America collaboration, ACF has commissioned a new work titled Here We Stand, presented in partnership with the Princeton University Glee Club and Decoda, Carnegie Hall’s Affiliate Ensemble.
About the Commission
Here We Stand is inspired by the life of 20th-century bass-baritone, actor, professional football player, and activist Paul Robeson. Honoring the 50th anniversary of his death, the work for two rapper-singers, choir, and orchestra blends artistic and cultural influences, reflecting Robeson’s belief in a shared human experience as he fought for the liberation of African Americans and all of humanity.
World Premiere: Here We Stand
Sunday, Feb. 21, 2027, 4:00 p.m.
Richardson Auditorium, Princeton, NJ
About Gilad Cohen
Gilad Cohen is an active composer, performer, and theorist in genres including concert music, rock, and music for theater. His music was commissioned by ASCAP, Barlow Endowment, Chamber Music America, Houston Art Alliance, American Harp Society, and Concert Artists Guild; won top prizes in international competitions in the U.S., Europe, and Asia; and was released on Albany Records, Naxos/Delos, and Navona Records. Venues that featured Gilad’s music include Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, Budapest Music Centre, Beijing Modern Music Festival, Helsinki Music Centre, Belgrade’s International Review of Composers, and festivals in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Germany, Poland, Australia, the UK, Czechia, USA, Israel, Malta, and Canada. Gilad performs regularly with various ensembles on piano, bass guitar, and guitar. An Associate Professor of Music at Ramapo College of New Jersey, Gilad holds a Ph.D. in composition from Princeton University, where in 2014 he produced the first-ever academic conference devoted to Pink Floyd.
About Ronvé O’Daniel
Ronvé O’Daniel is a proud alumnus and Professor of Musical Theatre at Wright State University. He is an award-winning songwriter, playwright, actor, director, and hip-hop recording artist whose work has been produced off Broadway and developed at leading institutions, including TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Eugene O’Neill National Music Theater Conference, Johnny Mercer Writers Colony at Goodspeed Musicals, and NYU Tisch School of the Arts. His albums include I’m Not 20 Anymore, Motivation Music and He Speaks So Well. His composer/lyricist credits include Duke & Roya (off Broadway), Superhero (off Broadway), Greenwood: The Black Wallstreet Musical (Bristol Riverside Theatre Company), The Earth Remembers (Virginia Stage Company), What’s Going On – Songs of Change (92NY Lyrics & Lyricists), Once Upon a Rhyme (NYU Tisch, Uproar Theatrics), Beautiful Hair (City Springs Theatre Company), and The New Girl (Concord Theatricals).
About Decoda
Decoda, Carnegie Hall’s Affiliate Ensemble, is an artist-led collective of internationally acclaimed musicians dedicated to creating a more compassionate and connected world through music. Known for placing human connection at the center of artistry, Decoda brings together virtuosic chamber music performance, meaningful community engagement, and artist mentorship. Decoda regularly performs at leading venues worldwide, with commissions from Valerie Coleman, Nina C. Young, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Ringdown. Coleman’s Revelry, featured on Decoda’s debut album, received a 2025 GRAMMY Award nomination. Decoda also leads artist-development programs, including the Decoda Chamber Music Festival. Central to its work is “Music for Transformation,” which creates sustained artistic partnerships in correctional facilities, schools, hospitals, shelters, and community organizations, inviting participants to become creative collaborators through performance, composition, and songwriting.
About Princeton University Glee Club
The Glee Club is the oldest and largest choir at Princeton University, and has for generations served as the ‘hub’ for singers at Princeton. The choir embraces a vast array of repertoire, from Renaissance motets and madrigals, Romantic partsongs, large choral-orchestral masterworks, and 21st century choral commissions to the more traditional Glee Club fare of spirituals, folk music, and college songs. The spectrum of Glee Club members is perhaps even broader: undergraduates and graduate students, scientists and poets, philosophers and economists – all walks of academic life are represented, knit together by their belief in the nobility and joy of singing together
American Composers Forum’s ACF | connect program is made possible with the outstanding generosity of the following individuals: Jane Anfinson, Thomas Arneson, Suzanne Asher, Carol Barnett, Pearl and Bob Bergad, Margee and Will Bracken, Karen Brooks, Richard Cisek and Kay Fredericks, Dee Ann and Kent Crossley, Julia W. Dayton, C. Lee Essrig, Rosemary & David Good Family Foundation, Katherine Goodale, Jeff and Hyun Mee Graves, Carol Heen, Steve Heitzeg and Gwen Pappas, Kathleen Henschel and John Dewes, Linda and Jack Hoeschler, Leaetta Hough and Bob Muschewske, Sam Hsu and Sally Cheng, Hella Mears Hueg Estate Gift, Thelma Hunter Estate Gift, John and Ruth Huss, George Frederick Jewett Foundation East, Art and Martha Kaemmer, Jon Lewis and Lisa Merklin, Mike and Kay McCarthy, Greg McNeely, Alfred and Ann Moore, Louis and Gloria Nuechterlein, John Nuechterlein and Dan Monson, John and Debbie Orenstein, I.A. O’Shaughnessy Foundation in memory of Thelma Hunter, David and Judy Ranheim, Denice Rippentrop, Vanessa Rose, Bill and Susan Sands, Gale Sharpe, Doug and Kathy Skor, Dan and Ellie Thomas, Stephen and Jayne Usery, Kathleen van Bergen, Janika Vandervelde, Jim Wafler, and Margaret and Angus Wurtele.