Ryan Cohan, a renowned Chicago-based jazz pianist and composer, will have the inaugural performance of his new piece titled “Prism” on September 26 at Studio5 in Evanston. 

Cohan’s work consists of solo piano compositions, film scores and symphony orchestra arrangements. His genius is well appreciated by the music world, evidenced by his numerous collaborations with other elite musicians such as jazz legends Ramsey Lewis and Freddie Hubbard.

“Prism” will be performed with Two Quartets, a music ensemble created by Cohan featuring a jazz quartet and a string quartet. The Daily spoke with Cohan to learn more about his new piece. 

This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

The Daily: As a Chicago native, how has the city’s music scene influenced your artistic voice?

Cohan: Chicago has a very rich musical history with jazz and improvisation, as well as a great variety of musicians playing in different world music styles. I went to school at DePaul University  many years ago, and one of the biggest benefits of going there was having an opportunity to get integrated into the music scene while I was in and out of the school. Almost all of the music professors were working at the top of their field in Chicago. 

Coming up in Chicago, I played in a lot of different jazz ensembles, as well as Latin music ensembles. I had an opportunity to play with some classical ensembles and the Chicago Symphony years ago. All that history and having a variety of musicians across the music scenes have been a great benefit to my development as a musician and a composer.

The Daily: What first drew you to jazz and composing? Was there a specific moment when you knew this was the path you wanted to follow?

Cohan: There’s one moment I remember when I was younger. My mother was a musician, and she taught music. She took me to a concert when I was 15-years-old that was a triple bill with McCoy Tyner, Ahmad Jamal and Chick Corea. I was just so blown away by the creativity and the freedom that these musicians were playing, with their technical mastery of the piano, their incredible harmonic creativity and then their writing. It was the first time I had really heard this modern original music live. I was so blown away by the freedom of the music and the depth of expression in it. I remember thinking, “This is the greatest thing you can do with your life.”

The Daily: You’ve mentioned drawing on inspirations from world music, impressionism and jazz. Which influences came through most strongly in “Prism?” 

Cohan: I’ve written several large scale works, multi movement or long form pieces, where I had an idea in mind of what the narrative was. With “Prism,” I approached creative music writing on the flip side of that, where I just let the music flow. I saw that all these different influences were in the music because they all are important to me, and they all resonate with me as true. I think it’s tied together through improvisation in a collaborative effort by the ensemble to play it differently each time. 

The Daily: What excites you most about finally sharing this piece with the world at its premiere?

Cohan: It’s such a special thing today to present creative work. If the sentiment in the music, the components of the story, are honest and true, what might ring true for me might create a different story for the listener by how they interpret it. Especially in today’s culture and political and financial climate, spending the time to create artistic work is courageous for everybody involved. The artists creating the work, the musicians playing the work and the audiences spending their time coming to hear it because they all want to transcend the details of every life. 

The musicians I’m working with are not only some of the best in Chicago, but some of the best in the world and hearing them bring this music to life is extraordinary to me. They’re taking it to places beyond what I even wrote. It’s just been a thrilling experience, and I can’t wait to share this with an audience.

The Daily: What do you hope listeners will take away — not just about the music, but about themselves or the world — after experiencing “Prism?”

Cohan: I think the piece of music I wrote is one sound that exists because of a variety of other sounds and other influences around the world, and they work together. The music sounds best because of all these different influences, and that’s the way I look at the world. We are better as people by embracing different cultures and ideas and being able to, even if we don’t agree on certain topics, exist with these different ideologies. 

With some of that work I did as a cultural ambassador, music gives a universal language, and it has that power to spark conversation and create understanding. Music is a beautiful sonic tapestry. This music is a prism of my musical influences. Every person is a prism of all the different influences that they’ve had growing up culturally, their nurture or nature and whatever they’ve experienced. Hopefully, we can start seeing that there’s more commonality than there is distinction between the separateness. 

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