Matt Cohen - A Somewhat Brief Bio
Music was everything to me for a while, and I spent years of summers at music camp, and through my high-school years, and studying at the Juilliard Conservatory, I 'gigged' fairly often - playing at churches, 'ringing' in school and community bands and orchestras, and playing Italian feasts. Thankfully, my parents had moved us to Manhattan, from which transportation to schools and gigs was not as arduous as it had been from my childhood home in Queens. The Italian feast gigs were my favorite, definitely worth a digression. Italian feasts were huge neighborhood-wide parades, where the Italians rolled around a statue of a saint (often Saint Anthony) while people along the route pinned money to it. These gigs were fun, not just because of the great food and the excitement of the music and marching, but also because of the sense of cameradery with my fellow musicians. Most of them had been marching around in these things for thirty years, but never did everyone know all of the wacky song requests we would get. So, whenever we got a request to play a song like 'Mama' or 'A Cup of Coffee', someone who knew the tune would have to start out and the rest of us would have to jump in and fake it! Those parades were also where I saw the darker side of being a musician - the side where older musicians with nothing put away for retirement got sick just once and slipped out of sight. Even my teacher at the Metropolitan Opera, Mel Broiles, had to work hard to make a living in music. Thankfully, my parents had convinced me to attend The Bronx High School of Science rather than The High School of Performing Arts, so I had some latitude in picking a college. People always ask me, "How did you end up in Minneapolis", and I tell them about how I chose Carleton, a small college in the Midwest. Before I started looking at colleges, I barely knew what was out there in the middle of the country. After visiting a number of east coast colleges (mostly music conservatories) and visiting Carleton, I knew the Midwest for me. The place was friendly and just felt good!
I went to Carleton at the end of an era, the time of the "Vaxlab", a room full of terminals where geeks stayed up all night coding, eating pizza (circumventing the Vaxlab food restriction by reciting the following mantra: "If I'm not eating it then it's not food, and if I've eaten it then it's not in the Vaxlab"), socializing, posting to the electronic bulletin board, exploring the relatively undeveloped Internet, and playing the occasional network computer game. It was computer geek heaven! While at college, I initially had considered becoming a music teacher, but in my explorations of the academic world I had learned too much about the ugliness of academic politics. Thus, I left college not sure of what I should do with my life. For the next year I stayed around the college town and managed a restaurant, considering my options. During that time I got engaged to Erin Erskine, whom I had been dating on and off during my time at Carleton. Once she graduated, the nearby Twin Cities with its low cost of living and high degree of culture seemed to opportune place for us both to explore our options. So, we moved to Minneapolis. During that next year, while considering my options, I held a number of jobs simultaneously, including working in the marketing wing of the Minnesota Orchestra, guarding at the Walker Arts Center, and temping. The temping ended up leading to a job as support staff at the University of Minnesota, where I stayed for two years. That job was great for me, and it was at there that I first learned about the emerging World Wide Web, taught myself the basics and constructed one of the first department home pages at the University. The Web seems like the perfect outlet for my computer skills, since I can indulge my artistic sensibilities at the same time as my more technical side and curiosity. While working at the University, I also created my first commercial web site for my friend Ashu - Khazana: India Arts Online. This web site is still going strong for Ashu, and his beautiful gallery in Minneapolis is one of my favorite places to spend a day off.
I loved the people and the work at the University, but when a friend offered a chance to work on a startup with him (Copernican Solutions Inc.) I gave it a chance. For the next two years I explored the intricacies of document technology and ISO standards, learning how the technologies of the Web fit into the larger scheme of things. In 1997 I accepted a position as Director of Internet Services for one of my oldest clients, Clareity Consulting. Clareity was an interesting couple of years, consulting to support the real estate industry (e.g. Realtor Associations and Multiple Listing Services). I enjoyed working from home, which I was able to do most days, but I also enjoyed travelling around the country and to Norway for some projects. In 1999 I started a company called University.com with Bruce Peterson. It was a technology startup, with all the risks and craziness that entails, but we did some great work. We produced e-commerce enabled online learning management software and content. My responsibilities included oversight of product development, architecture of web application, programming, code review and optimization, as well as building and managing internal development teams and contractor relationships. The system is in use by companies such as Coldwell Banker, RE/MAX, Prudential, GMAC, and Century 21. We sold the business in 2001 to a company called Entreport, which hasn't done very much with such an auspicious beginning. After a brief dip into the world of insurance, doing some project management on a 'Microsoft .NET' initiative at an insurance software company, I rejoined my old friends Gregg and Marie at Clareity. Working with smart folks, working for good clients ... this is a great thing. To be continued ...
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omputers for the home were a new thing when I was growing up,
and my father
bought my brother and I an Apple II+ with a whole 64k of RAM.
Access to my father's CPM based Televideo business computers
and a summer at the New York Institute of Technology,
learning to program and work on machines on a big VAX network rounded out
the computer geek part of my childhood. At that point I was turning into the
prototypical geek - glasses, computers, and Dungeons and Dragons.
Luckily, in terms of my future mental
health, a different, healthier hobby came to the fore in my life - music.
once wrote, in a college application essay,
about that magic moment with a trumpet
when I knew that music was was for me: "...
I inserted the mouthpiece into the trumpet, raised it my lips, and
made a sound like a dying elephant." Regardless of inauspicious
beginnings, I loved making music I played in school bands,
and eventually worked myself up to the Borough-Wide Band and then to
the All-City Band.
ollege was
definitely a great period in my life. - learning to become more rigorous in my
thinking and writing, meeting some amazing friends, exploring various
physical and mental disciplines. Musically, it was a
chance to break away from the trumpet, and I explored early western music
and non-western musics extensively, including the study of the Hindustani
sitar, which I have continued to this day. My other pursuits during this period
included Aikido, medieval studies (history, literature, art and philosophy),
shooting pool, and yes, computers found their way back into my
life.
t was during this time that,
after a three year engagement, I got
married to Erin, in a