MEDIA CONTACT: Judy Moore at (847) 491-4819 or jkm229@northwestern.edu

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Northwestern University School of Music Announces New Faculty

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Faculty appointments to the Northwestern University School of Music for 2005-06 include two additions to the performance studies area, Dean Toni-Marie Montgomery has announced. Steven J. Cohen has been named associate professor of clarinet, and DaXun Zhang will be a lecturer in double bass.

Steven H. Cohen comes to Northwestern from the faculty of the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Previously, he served as principal clarinet with the Louisiana Philharmonic (and its predecessor, the New Orleans Symphony) and professor of clarinet at the Louisiana State University. Other performing credits for Cohen include principal clarinet with the Texas Opera Theater and, since 1979, principal clarinet with the orchestra of the Brevard Music Center. In addition to recital and solo appearances throughout the U.S., Cohen was heard at the 1993, 1999, and 2003 Oklahoma Clarinet Symposiums and was a guest artist at the 1997 Seoul Philharmonic Clarinet Festival and the 1998 Idaho/Montana Clarinet Symposium.

A native of New York City, Cohen received a bachelor of music degree from Oberlin Conservatory of Music, majoring in both clarinet and piano. He has taught at Louisiana’s Loyola University and Tulane University and has given master classes throughout the United States, Europe, South America, and Korea. Cohen is an artist-clinician for Buffet clarinets, a Legère reed artist, and the author of many articles published in Clarinet magazine. Also an accomplished pianist, he performs regularly in a variety of settings.

DaXun Zhang has established himself as one of today’s most exciting young artists. He is the first double bass player to win the Young Concert Artists Auditions (2004), and also received that competition’s Claire Tow Prize, which sponsored his New York debut. His other honors include the La Jolla Music Society Prize, the Orchestra New England Soloist Prize, the Fergus Prize, and the Washington Performing Arts Society Prize, which will sponsor his Washington debut at the Kennedy Center in 2005. Grand prize winner in the American String Teachers Association National Solo Competition, Zhang was also the first double bassist to win first prize in the Women’s Auxiliary of the Minnesota Symphony Orchestra Competition (2003) and the youngest artist ever to win the International Society of Bassists Solo Competition (2001).

Zhang can be heard on the soundtrack of a 10-part documentary series on Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project and on the companion CD that will be released on Sony Classical. His past engagements include chamber music appearances at the La Jolla Music Society Summerfest and Cincinnati’s Linton Chamber Music Series, as well as recitals for Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the artist series in Tallahassee, Florida. This season he performs with the Silk Road Project at Carnegie Hall and presents recitals at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, the University of Georgia, and at the Buffalo Chamber Music Society.

A native of Harbin, China, Zhang attended the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing earned an artist’s diploma from Indiana University.

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