Ryan Cohan Quartet

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24

TIME: 3:45-4:45PM

VENUE: WAGNER STAGE. MIDWAY PLAISANCE AT South WOODLAWN AVE.

RYAN COHAN

Ryan Cohan masterfully walks the line between writer and player, proving himself time and time again to be not only a versatile, powerfully expressive pianist, but also a composer of rare vision.

Recognized for his “ingenuity and virtuosity” (Chicago Tribune), Cohan has authored an expansive body of work ranging from pieces for solo piano to arrangements for symphony orchestra and scores for independent films. He has produced six albums of original music, including The River, which features a sixty-minute suite inspired by Cohan’s travels throughout Africa, and his latest, Originations, which synthesizes Middle Eastern and other world music influences, classical compositional elements, and improvisation, and was a DownBeat Editor’s Pick and Chicago Tribune’s Best Jazz Recording of 2020.

Cohan has embarked upon multiple international tours representing the U.S. Department of State in partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center, and received honors including the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Music and Sound Design Fellowship, three New Jazz Works commissioning grants from Chamber Music America and The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Sundance Institute’s Interdisciplinary Grant, multiple Aaron Copeland Recording Grants, Composer Assistance Award from New Music U.S.A., and two Illinois Arts Council Fellowships.

He has performed with Freddie Hubbard, Joe Locke, Andy Narell, Jon Faddis, Paquito D’Rivera, Kurt Elling, Gregory Porter, Victor Lewis, Bob Cranshaw, Jeff Hamilton, Steve Wilson, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, MusicNOW Ensemble, Orbert Davis’s Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, The Chicago Jazz Ensemble, The Grant Park Symphony Orchestra with Otis Clay, and The Chicago Chamber Musicians, among others. He has also collaborated extensively with Ramsey Lewis, contributing more than twenty compositions and arrangements to the NEA Jazz Masters recorded and live performance repertoire.

As an educator, Cohan has held the position of Artist-in-Residence at The Guimarães Jazz Festival (Portugal), The University of Louisville School of Music, and Purdue University, and taught or mentored at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Skidmore Jazz Institute, and the Jazz Institute of Chicago.

The musicians:

Ryan Cohan - piano

John Wojciechowski - saxophones / flute

Ethan Philion - acoustic bass

Neil Hemphill - drums