Acclaimed organist and teacher to join Rice

David Ruth
713-348-6327
druth@rice.edu

Amy Hodges
713-348-6777
amy.hodges@rice.edu

Acclaimed organist and teacher to join Rice’s Shepherd School of Music
Kenneth Cowan will begin teaching at Rice in fall 2012

Internationally acclaimed concert organist and teacher Kenneth Cowan will join the faculty of Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music in fall 2012 as an associate professor of organ.

Renowned for his artistry, technique and programming, Cowan has earned a reputation as one of North America’s finest concert organists. He maintains a rigorous performing schedule that takes him to top concert venues throughout America, Canada and Europe, and has numerous critically acclaimed studio recordings to his credit. Cowan is currently a member of the faculty at the Westminster Choir College at Rider University in Princeton, N.J., where he was awarded the 2008 Rider University Distinguished Teaching Award.

Cowan has performed recently at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, Philadelphia’s Verizon Hall, Spivey Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, and the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. In addition, Cowan has been a featured artist at the national conventions of the American Guild of Organists held in Los Angeles and Minneapolis, has performed at many regional conventions of the AGO and has been featured at several conventions of the Organ Historical Society and the Royal Canadian College of Organists.

“In a relatively short amount of time, Ken Cowan has established himself as one of our country’s premiere organists,” Shepherd School of Music Dean and the Elma Schneider Professor of Music Robert Yekovich said. ”Having been at Westminster, a highly respected program in its own right, for the past several years, Ken also brings a wealth of teaching experience to Rice. The Shepherd School is extremely fortunate to have someone of Ken’s caliber continuing the fine tradition established here by Clyde Holloway, the Herbert S. Autrey Professor Emeritus of Organ.”

”I am sincerely honored to be joining the esteemed faculty of the Shepherd School of Music,” Cowan said. ”The variety and quality of musical activity present in the Shepherd School will be nourishing for me and my students alike, and the facilities at Rice present an ideal situation for training organists of the highest caliber. I eagerly await moving to the community.”

”The search for a new organ professor has been a long and arduous one,” Shepherd School Chair of Keyboard and Professor of Piano Robert Roux said. ”Ken Cowan was our very top candidate and is recognized everywhere as a most accomplished, personable and academically astute young virtuoso. He is already one of the world’s greatest organists. His hiring represents a coup that will resonate strongly throughout the organ world as well as the music world in general. He will only add to the prestige of an already stellar music program at the Shepherd School.”

A native of Thorold, Ontario, Cowan received a Master of Music and an Artist Diploma from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Prior to attending Yale, he graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Cowan’s wife, Lisa Shihoten, is an accomplished violinist and will teach young violin students in the Shepherd School’s preparatory program.