About Harriet Cohen
Harriet Pearl Alice Cohen CBE (2 December 1895 – 13 November 1967) was a British pianist. == Biography == Harriet Cohen was born in London. Her younger sister was the singer Myra Verney (1905-1993) and she was a distant cousin of the pianist Irene Scharrer. She studied piano at the Royal Academy of Music under Tobias Matthay, having won the Ada Lewis scholarship at the age of 12 followed by the Sterndale Bennett Prize in 1913. She made her debut at a Chappell's Sunday concert at the Queen's Hall a year later. At this stage Cohen also had ambitions to be a composer: her Russian Impressions for piano (composed circa 1913) became her only original compositions to be published. Her first major appearance was in 1920 when she appeared at the Wigmore Hall in a joint recital with the tenor John Coates. She became particularly associated with contemporary British music, giving the world premiere of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Piano Concerto (which was written for her) and recording Edward Elgar's Piano Quintet with the Stratton Quartet under the composer's supervision. A number of composers wrote music specifically for her, including John Ireland, Béla Bartók, Ernest Bloch and E. J. Moeran, and particularly Sir Arnold Bax (Cohen's lover), who wrote most of his piano pieces for her. This includes the music for David Lean's 1948 film version of Oliver Twist.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.