Sheryl Cohen’s career of over 55 years began in 1967 as principal flutist with the Toledo Symphony Orchestra and the Toledo Opera Association, and flute professor at The University of Toledo, posts she held for five years before enrolling in Florida State University’s DM Degree program to study with Albert Tipton. In 1975 Cohen joined the faculty of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and as principal flutist with the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra.

Cohen has performed throughout the United States in Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, in Atlanta with Thamyris Contemporary Ensemble in Hans Werner Henze’s El Cimarron, in California at SongFest Art Song Festival, and at universities and regional flute festivals. Her international career started with concert tours in Asia in 1987, and she also performed in South America, Sweden, and France.

Much in demand as a pedagogue, Cohen taught classes throughout the US, in Asia, at the British Flute Society, France’s Marseille Conservatory, Sweden’s Royal College of Music in Stockholm, International Festivals in Orebro, and many Bel Canto Flute courses in towns throughout Sweden. In Latin America, Cohen has presented masterclasses and Bel Canto Flute courses in Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, and Costa Rica. Cohen’s book Bel Canto Flute: The Rampal School, won the National Flute Association’s Newly Published Music Competition in 2004. The Flute Network hailed it as “one of the most rigorously organized, well-thought-out and creatively written pedagogical books of the last half-century.” A recipient of a Camargo Foundation Fellowship in Cassis, France, Cohen continues to research and write on the Marseille School of Joseph and Jean-Pierre Rampal.

From her first performance at the 1987 St. Louis convention, she has served the National Flute Association through performances, pedagogical presentations, and committees, including the tribute concert honoring Jean-Pierre Rampal’s Lifetime Achievement Award, presentation of the tribute to Albert Tipton’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the memorial tribute concert to Alain Marion, and many others.