Steven Mark Kohn (born 1957) has worn several different creative hats, although his principle training is in music composition. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Music Composition from Kent State University in 1979 (magna cum laude), where his principle teacher was Walter Watson. While at Kent, his Music for Piano and Orchestra was a concerto competition winner and premiered with his piano teacher Jerry Davidson as soloist. He completed his Master’s degree in Composition with Donald Erb at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1982 and attended the Aspen Music festival as a composition student of Charles Jones, where his Hexentanz for Bass Clarinet and Piano received a composition award. While a resident composer with the Banff Music Theatre Ensemble in Alberta, he composed his first opera Rite of Passage which later received it’s professional premiere by Opera Ora-Now in Toronto.

While still enrolled at CIM, he joined with fellow student Jim Brickman to write and arrange commercials for TV and radio. This collaboration yielded national spots for Wheaties, Hickory Farms, Stanley Steemer, TRW, BP, Rax Restaurants and local and regional jingles for The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio Lottery, Indianapolis News, Northfield Park, Schwebels Bread and a host of others. After Brickman headed west, Steven continued writing commercial music adding spots for Arby’s, Volvo, GTE, Kelly Tire and Matrix as well as music for KFI Radio of Los Angeles, Seaworld, Harper Collins Audio Books, Stress-Less, Second Story Productions and the theme music for the Sylvia Rimm Show, heard nationally on NPR.

Along the way, he has written music for a number of award-winning children’s films, including Frog and Toad Together and Uncle Elephant (for PBS), and Cousin Kevin and Morris Goes to School (for the Disney Channel). He has also scored three ABC Weekend specials: Commander Toad in Space, Ralph S. Mouse and the Emmy-nominated Runaway Ralph starring Fred Savage and Ray Walston. He has scored the BBC 2 (London) documentary Let Them Live, (produced by the Environmental Investigation Association) and a number of short independent films, including animator George Wong’s Butterfly Dreams.

In 1989 a new collaboration began with noted psychotherapist Belleruth Naparstek, a pioneer in the field of Guided Imagery, a meditative exercise that engages the mind in the healing process. Steven began underscoring Belleruth’s “Health Journeys” imagery narrations, and has to date, scored over 40 titles, with topics ranging from losing weight to coping with death. The Surgery Imagery CD is distributed by Blue Cross of California to thousands of patients each year. So far nearly two million Health Journeys CD’s have been sold worldwide, including translations into Spanish and Hebrew. Three of Steven’s music-only CDs have been released as well; Music from Health Journeys, Inward Journey and most recently, Meditative Reflections.

His three-volume American Folk Set (published By Classical Vocal Repertoire), a collection of American folk-song arrangements has been performed worldwide by such artists as David Daniels, Peter Halverson, Paul Rowe and Andrew Garland, with the latter recording the whole set for Azica records in 2008 on a disk entitled On the Other Shore. (Daniels and Garland both performed his folk songs in Carnegie Hall.) His Hymn for String Orchestra (published by Carl Fischer) has been recorded by the San Jose Chamber Orchestra. He was selected to compose the fanfare for the dedication of the Cleveland Institute of Music’s new Mixon recital hall, which opened in November of 2007.

Steven is also a writer and lyricist. Besides the many lyrics written for commercial jingles and pop and theater songs, he has created lyrics for the stage musicals The Quiltmaker’s Gift (published by Dramatic Publishing) and Tale of the Nutcracker, and wrote special material for The Three Redneck Tenors, all to the music of Craig Bohmler. The Quiltmaker’s Gift has seen productions at Laguna Playhouse, Phoenix Theatre (AZ), First Stage Children’s Theater (Milwaukee) and many other regional theaters. His original screenplay Little Mozart was produced in Dallas by OhLook! Productions and featured opera singers Donald Sherrill and Timothy Nolen. His short story The Professor’s Diary appeared in National Lampoon magazine.

In his spare time, he dabbles in independent short film production with his brother, animator Justin Kohn. Together, they have made three films; Bugfeast, Lord J’s Wild West Daredevil Show and How’s My Driving?, which have made the film festival rounds and even garnered a few awards, including a silver medal at the Philadelphia International Film Festival and “Best of Ohio” at the Ohio Independent Film Festival. He has created an educational presentation called Music in Movies (through CIM’s distance learning program), which introduces elementary school children all over the country to film music in a fun and interactive way.

He currently lives with his wife Ann and son Ryan in beautiful Bainbridge, Ohio, just east of Cleveland, and serves on the composition faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music as Director of the Electronic Music Studio.