 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ryan CohanQuick Contacts email the dept. of performing arts email the music dept. email the theater dept.
UIC Department of Performing Arts |
Conductor, UIC Jazz Ensemble, Jazz Piano  Pianist and composer Ryan Cohan is one of the leading jazz performers and composers working today. During his undergraduate years at DePaul University, he spent two summers a the prestigious and highly competitive Skidmore Jazz Institute, where he was named one of the Institute's first Blue Note Scholars, a scholarship established by Bruce Lundvall, President of Blue Note Records, to recognize outstanding young jazz musicians. Subsequently, he was invited back to the Institute as an adjunct teacher, then full faculty member, and finally as a distinguished guest artist. He has also been the assistant director of small and large jazz ensembles at the University of Illinois at Chicago and continues to work as a jazz artist clinician at universities and high schools throughout the U.S. and abroad. Beginning in 1997, Ryan Cohan also wrote extensively for and toured with NEA Jazz Master Ramsey Lewis, contributing more than twelve pieces to several of Mr. Lewis's albums, including Dance of the Soul (GRP, 1998), Appassionata (Narada Jazz, 1999), Meant to Be (Narada Jazz, 2002), The Very Best of Ramsey Lewis (GRP, 2006), and the theme music to Mr. Lewis's nationally syndicated television show, The Legends of Jazz (2006). He also composed orchestral scores for films, including Dog Walker (2002) and Tapioca (2008); his music for the latter was nominated for "best impact of music in a full-length feature film" at the Park City Music Festival. In 2007, the Ryan Cohan Quartet was one of only six groups to win a place in the Jazz at Lincoln Center Musical Ambassador program, which is cosponsored by the U.S. Department of State. As part of the award, his quartet not only performed at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York and the National Geographic Museum in Washington, D.C., but toured Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Jordan. Having won again this year, the Ryan Cohan Quartet toured Eastern Europe. In addition to his Guggenheim Fellowship, Ryan Cohan has been honored with two Illinois Arts Council Fellowships and three City of Chicago Community Assisted Arts Program grants.
|
