Steven Mark Kohn

Steven Mark Kohn has worn several different creative hats. As a composer, he has written music for a number of award-winning children’s films, including Frog and Toad Together, Uncle Elephant, Cousin Kevin, Morris Goes to School, Commander Toad in Space, Ralph S. Mouse and the Emmy-nominated Runaway Ralph starring Fred Savage and Ray Walston. He has composed and arranged commercial music for Wheaties, Arby’s, Volvo, Hickory Farms, TRW, BP, Stanley Steemer, Matrix and many others. His music can be heard nationally on NPR for the Sylvia Rimm Show and on the Time-Warner audio book series “Health Journeys”, which has sold over two million copies worldwide. His “Hymn for String Orchestra” has been recorded by the San Jose Chamber Orchestra and E. C. Schirmer publishes his art song catalog. His three volumes of American Folk Song arrangements were premiered in Carnegie Hall and have since been performed around the world by a hundreds of artists. Andrew Garland and Donna Loewy recorded the entire set in 2008. Steve has co-written and directed the short films Bugfeast, Lord J’s Wild West Daredevil Show and How’s My Driving?, which have been screened at festivals around the country and in Europe. For the theater, he created lyrics for the musicals The Quiltmaker’s Gift (Dramatic Publishing), Unstoppable Me, Little Mozart, A Beautiful Place, Happy, Texas, and the opera The Tale of the Nutcracker, all to the music of Craig Bohmler. His Mary Chesnut; a Civil War Diary was written for soprano Jennifer Larmore and his "The Trial of Susan B. Anthony" was written for mezzo soprano Adriana Zabala. His short story The Professor’s Diary appeared in National Lampoon magazine. He wrote the libretto for the grand opera Riders of the Purple Sage (music by Mr. Bohmler), which was premiered by Arizona Opera in February of 2017. For 21 years he served on the composition faculty of the Cleveland Institute of Music as Director of the Electronic Music Studio.