DENIN KOCH
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, and Ellis Marsalis, and has held memberships in the Spokane Jazz Orchestra, Bob Curnow Big Band and Eastman New Jazz Ensemble. In 2017, he was named an Outstanding Musician at the Elmhurst Jazz Festival. That same year, he won the MusicFest Northwest Young Artist competition and performed as a soloist with the Spokane Symphony Orchestra. Koch is currently completing a master's degree in jazz performance at the Eastman School of Music, where he studies with Bob Sneider and Dave Rivello. His debut album, "now i am become death, destroyer of world: a manhattan project retrospective" was recorded in October 2019 with his band "beta particle" and will be released in spring 2020. The album is an original ten-movement suite for jazz quintet, narrator and viola that retells the story of the Manhattan Project.
Koch is on the faculty of the Eastman Community Music School and is a member of Eastman's Institute for Music Leadership Arts Leadership Program. The organization named him a Catherine Filene Shouse Fellow in 2019. At Eastman, he teaches jazz guitar lessons and a History of Jazz class. He graduated from Whitworth University in 2018 with a degree in jazz performance, studying with Dan Keberle, Brent Edstrom and Paul Grove.