He is a cellist born in Dallas, Texas, who grew up mainly in El Paso, Texas. He studied at the Arts Magnet at the Booker T. Washington High School of Performing Arts in Dallas before further studies at the New School of Music between 1984 and 1985. He went on to gain his Bachelor of Music Performance degree at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied from 1985 to 1990.
Before he finished his studies he was a solo cellist with the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival Orchestra in 1988 which toured Europe with Sergiu Celibidache, Christoph Eisenbach and Leonard Bernstein, with whom he was also seen in an Eastern European aired TV broadcast. He also performed for the German President Richard von Weizsacker with the Salzau Quartet.
In 1990 he became a member of The Philadelphia Orchestra and in 2004 was presented with the C. Hartman Kuhn Award which is for “a musician who has shown both musical ability and enterprise of such character to enhance the musical standards and reputation of The Philadelphia Orchestra.” In 2011 he was made the Acting Assistant Principal Cello and in 2015 became Acting Associate Principal Cello.
As a chamber musician he was a performer of Wolfgang Sawallisch’s Opening Week Festival in 1993 and has since been regular participant in The Philadelphia Orchestra’s Chamber Music series. He has performed as a member of 1807 & Friends Chamber Music Society, the Mondrian Ensemble and the Network for New Music and has often been heard as a guest performer on the Philadelphia Chamber Ensemble series since 1993. Artists he has collaborated with include Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell and Lang Lang among many others.
As a soloist he has performed with several orchestras that include Lansdowne (PA) Symphony (of which he has been principal cell since 1992) and the New Symphony Orchestra of Sofia, Bulgaria. His commissioned Winter Toccata for solo cello by Robert Maggio brought him a nomination at the Gay/Lesbian American Music Awards (GLAMA) in 1998.
Recordings he has performed on include Invocation/Solo Piano and Chamber Music by Ingrid Arauco, Seven Mad Gods by Robert Maggio, At the Still Point by Network for New Music and Peter Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 “Pathetique”/Dumka by The Philadelphia Orchestra among others.
In the field of musical education he has been on the faculties of the College of New Jersey *Trenton”, the Philadelphia International Musical Festival, Swarthmore College and Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance. He has also given international master classes at universities in Sofia, Bulgaria and Seoul, South Korea.
Sources:
- https://www.philorch.org/your-philorch/meet-your-orchestra/musicians/john-koen/
- https://cellokoen.wordpress.com/about/
- http://www.pomusicians.org/john-koen.html
- https://www.discogs.com/artist/4625609-John-Koen
- https://www.allmusic.com/artist/john-koen-mn0002186544
- https://philadelphiamusicfestival.org/our-faculty/strings/john-koen/
- https://events.temple.edu/faculty-recital-john-koen-cello