Yuga Cohler, 17, has received increasing accolades, awards and scholarships as an oboist. At 13, he was the youngest player ever to be selected Principal Oboe in the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra (YPO) at New England Conservatory (NEC). Cohler has won prizes in numerous regional concerto competitions, including in Waltham, Arlington, Quincy and Lexington, and received an Honorable Mention in the Boston Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition. In 2004 and 2006, Cohler was featured on the national radio show From the Top, a weekly radio series that showcases the nation's most exceptional pre-college age classical musicians and is broadcast on more than 240 stations nationwide. This year, Cohler was principal oboist in the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Young Artist Orchestra Program and was named All-USA Musician by the Music Educators' National Conference, placing him among the top 100 high school musicians in the country. In December 2006 he was named one of the top twenty finalists nationwide in the Arts Recognition and Talent Search of the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts.
Cohler has performed nationally as a chamber musician. He is a two-time semifinalist of the National Fischoff Chamber Music Competition in Indiana, both as a member of the YPO Woodwind Quintet and Trio B-Natural. The YPO Woodwind Quintet was the first-ever wind group to advance to the semifinals of the Fischoff Competition from the NEC Preparatory Division. Trio B-Natural also won First Prize in the International Chamber Ensemble Competition of the Chamber Music Foundation of New England and performed in Carnegie Hall. Cohler is also a member of the Festivus Quartet, the 2006 Grand Prizewinner of the International Chamber Ensemble Competition.
Cohler began his musical studies of ear training, solfege, and piano at the age of three with his mother Fudeko Takahashi, a violinist and pedagogue. He has studied the oboe with Janice Bennett since he was in fifth grade, and has also studied with Fred Cohen, John Ferillo, and Stuart Dunkel. He spent the past summer studying conducting at Tanglewood with Federico Cortese, James Gaffigan, and Ludovic Morlot. He presently studies conducting with his father, Jonathan Cohler, and high school music director, Jeffrey Leonard. In a last-minute engagement, Yuga was recently asked to conduct YPO in the opening theme song of From the Top: Live from Carnegie Hall in Carnegie Zankel Hall. Yuga hopes one day to ascend to the podium of a major symphony orchestra. Aside from music, his hobbies include basketball, math, and poker, and he is captain of the nationally-ranked Lexington High School math team.
