"Cohan is a gifted, strong pianist from the Bud Powell-Herbie Hancock-Chick Corea tree [and] already a master at three-horn writing." -Downbeat Magazine
"With his witty arrangements and blistering solo capabilities, Cohan is certainly on the edge of bigger things." -TimeOut Chicago
Pianist/composer and Guggenheim Fellow Ryan Cohan has distinguished himself as a vital original voice to be heard amongst the elite young musicians on the global music scene today. He has performed with such luminaries and stellar ensembles as Freddie Hubbard, Curtis Fuller, Joe Locke, Paquito D’Rivera, Jon Faddis, Kurt Elling, Pat La Barbera, Andy Narell, Regina Carter, Michal Urbaniak, Orbert Davis and The Chicago Jazz Philharmonic, The Chicago Jazz Ensemble and The Chicago Chamber Musicians among many others. Ryan's diverse resume also includes a substantial list of commercial studio performing credits, arranging for the Grant Park Symphony with Otis Clay, and the music director position with the Chicago Human Rhythm Project.
As an educator, Ryan has been the assistant director of small and large jazz ensembles at The University Of Illinois at Chicago, faculty member of the Skidmore Jazz Institute in New York, and he continues to work as a jazz artist clinician at universities and high schools throughout the U.S and abroad.
Written with the support of a 2005 New Works commission from Chamber Music America, One Sky: Tone Poems For Humanity, a multi-movement suite Ryan Cohan composed for his sextet, was premiered at The Bernhard Theatre at Skidmore College in New York and received with a standing ovation and a rave review from www.albanyjazz.com. In 2008, he earned Chamber Music America’s Encore Award which supported additional performances of One Sky at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago and at Merkin Concert Hall in New York City. Ryan was again awarded the New Works grant from Chamber Music America also in 2008 to compose an original extended work inspired by his recent tour of Africa. As his vision refined further and his body of work continued to grow, Ryan received the prestigious 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship Award for Music Composition.
The Ryan Cohan Quartet was one of only six groups to win a place in the Jazz at Lincoln Center 2008 Rhythm Road program, which is co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. As part of the selection, his quartet performed not only 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 as cultural ambassadors. Chosen for the program again in 2009, the Ryan Cohan Quartet embarked on two extended Eastern European tours.
Ryan has produced three albums of all original compositions to rave reviews. Members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and some of Chicago’s most notable improvisers joined him on Real World (Real World Music, 1997). His second release, Here and Now (2001), not only earned him unanimous praise from critics here and abroad, but landed him a record deal with Sirocco Jazz (UK) and jump started his touring career; taking him and the ensemble he had founded to prominent international jazz venues. His release of One Sky (Motéma Music, 2007) was hailed as one of the best recordings of the year by the Chicago Tribune and other respected journals.
Beginning in 1997, Ryan wrote extensively for and toured with NEA Jazz Master Ramsey Lewis, contributing more than a dozen 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 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.
Additionally, Ryan has been honored with two Illinois Arts Council Fellowships and three City of Chicago Community Assisted Arts Program awards.
Another Look, Ryan Cohan’s fourth CD as a leader and the first featuring his working quartet plus vibraphone virtuoso Joe Locke and master percussionist Steve Kroon, will be released by Motéma Music in the spring of 2010.
