Updated: September 28, 2020
Born: January 12, 1996
Award-winning guitarist Denin Koch is a recognized performer, composer and educator whose musical conception synthesizes jazz, classical and rock music traditions into one powerful and unique sound. He has performed with Arturo Sandoval, Pat Metheny, Wycliffe Gordon, Branford Marsalis, Dee Daniels, Ellis Marsalis, Lynn Ligamari and Ryan Keberle and has held memberships in the Eastman New Jazz Ensemble, Spokane Jazz Orchestra and the Bob Curnow Big Band. His mentors and teachers include Gary Versace, Bob Sneider, Steve Kovalcheck, Clay Jenkins, Brent Edstrom and Dan Keberle. Koch's style has been lauded for its deep commitment to the jazz tradition whilst exploring modern ideas. His primary influences include Kurt Rosenwinkel, Jim Hall, Pat Metheny, Grant Green, Wes Montgomery, Kenny Dorham, Jimmy Page, Radiohead, Shostakovich and Dexter Gordon.
Koch's debut record, re: manhattan project will be released in 2020. The record is comprised of a ten-movement suite for narrator, viola and jazz quintet that retells the story of the Manhattan Project, the secret U.S. government program that produced the atomic bomb at the end of WWII. Due to the project's excellence, Koch has been awarded a grant by the Institute for Music Leadership at Eastman to produce the album. The work was premiered and recorded at Eastman in October 2019. He has also premiered two big band concert pieces from the suite, B Reactor and Flowers for the Shadows with the Eastman New Jazz Ensemble
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- re: manhattan project by Friedrich Kunzmann