David L. Cohen represented the United States in Canada for four years. He and his wife, Rhonda R. Cohen, have now put $10.5 million behind a Philadelphia institution that works the same territory, one concert hall at a time: The Philadelphia Orchestra.
The commitment, announced October 22 by The Philadelphia Orchestra and Ensemble Arts, creates two funds. The Fund for Cultural Diplomacy will pay for the orchestra’s tours, residencies, performances, recordings, and educational exchanges, at home and around the world. The Artistic Innovation and Discovery Fund, guided by music and artistic director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, will support works by overlooked, underrepresented, and emerging composers, and celebrate the contributions of Jewish artists. Read together, the two funds make one argument about what an orchestra is for. It carries a city into rooms the city could not enter on its own, and it decides whose music gets heard once it is inside.
A Fund With a Passport
The diplomacy is not new work for this ensemble. The orchestra first played abroad in Canada in 1918. In 1973 it became the first American orchestra to perform in the People’s Republic of China. Fifty-three years later, the relationship has become a record. The orchestra’s 2026 Asia Tour and China Residency is its 14th visit to China, the most of any American orchestra.
The tour opens November 5 in Incheon, South Korea, a sister city to Philadelphia. A delegation of business, civic, and arts leaders, organized by the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, will be in the audience. The orchestra travels as an opening act for its city’s business case as much as for the music, and the Cohens’ fund is built to keep that calendar full.
“Cultural diplomacy has been part of The Philadelphia Orchestra’s DNA since we first traveled abroad to Canada in 1918,” said Ryan Fleur, the organization’s president and CEO. “With the Fund for Cultural Diplomacy, we can continue to build lasting relationships through music and help bring the world to Philadelphia and Philadelphia to the world.” In recognition of the gift, Fleur’s title now reads the Ambassador David L. Cohen and Rhonda R. Cohen President and CEO. The top job at the institution carries an ambassador’s name, which is one way to make sure the mission survives the men who announced it.
The Music the Canon Left Out
The discovery fund puts money behind work Nézet-Séguin, now in his 14th season, has been doing without a fund named for it. Under his direction the orchestra has recorded Florence Price’s First and Third symphonies, a pairing that won a Grammy Award, and returned William Dawson, William Grant Still, and Louise Farrenc to its programs. At home, the ensemble plays in Marian Anderson Hall, rededicated in 2024 for the contralto and civil rights icon whose own career was an argument about who belongs on a stage.
The fund’s charge is written plainly: overlooked, underrepresented, and emerging composers, with a stated place for Jewish artists. “Artistic expression is essential to the human experience,” Nézet-Séguin said. “When more artists have the opportunity to shine, entire communities are strengthened.” Donors often say they want the canon widened. This gift assigns the job to a named fund, under a named conductor, with a repertoire already in progress.
Two Careers Behind the Check
The Cohens know both rooms this gift works in. David Cohen served as ambassador to Canada from 2021 to 2025, nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed unanimously by the Senate. Before Ottawa, he was a senior executive at Comcast NBCUniversal and the company’s first chief diversity officer. Earlier still, he chaired the law firm Ballard Spahr and ran City Hall as chief of staff to Mayor Edward G. Rendell from 1992 to 1997.
Rhonda Cohen chairs the board of The Glenmede Trust Company, a wealth management and trust firm, and is the first woman to hold that chair. A retired Ballard Spahr partner, she presides over the Christopher Ludwick Foundation and spent 18 years on the board of Community College of Philadelphia, which she chaired. Both Cohens graduated from Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.
“During our years of diplomatic service, we saw firsthand how music can build trust where other efforts fall short, and The Philadelphia Orchestra has led the way,” the couple said in the announcement. It is the rare donor statement that reads as a field report.
What the Gift Signals
Arts philanthropy usually buys permanence a photographer can capture: a hall, a wing, a name over a door. This gift buys motion and repertoire instead: plane tickets, residencies, recordings, and shelf space for composers the standard programs skipped. Governor Josh Shapiro, whose administration put $2 million of state money into the orchestra’s future, described the ensemble as economic infrastructure that has drawn foreign investment and jobs to Pennsylvania for 125 years. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker made the civic version of the case. “The Philadelphia Orchestra is one of our city’s greatest ambassadors,” she said, noting that Philadelphia leads the nation in celebrating America’s 250th anniversary.
The pairing matters. A former ambassador and a trust company chair are treating a regional orchestra the way governments treat an embassy and the way investors treat an endowment: as infrastructure that compounds. Other orchestras will watch whether the model travels, whether donors elsewhere start funding the programming and the passport over the building.
The first test comes quickly. On November 5, the orchestra walks onstage in Incheon, an ocean from home, with a Philadelphia delegation in the seats and a 53-year-old relationship with China on the itinerary. The money for the work now has a name, and so does the man hired to spend it.
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