Ethan Cohn is a bass player, composer, improviser, and educator born and raised in New York City. His work explores the intersections of composition and improvisation, acoustic and electronic sound, tradition and experimentation, and instrumental performance and interactive technology. Equally at home across a wide range of musical settings, he has worked with artists including Meredith Monk, John Hollenbeck, Dave Douglas, Levy Lorenzo, Annahstasia, Biréli Lagrène, and Jean-Michel Pilc.

Ethan’s musical life began with reluctant cello lessons, but took a turn as a teenager when he started playing along with his favorite albums on electric bass and guitar. He went on to study classical bass at Juilliard’s Precollege program and soon began composing his own music. At the age of 18, he wrote an orchestral piece for the New York Philharmonic as part of their Very Young Composers program.

Ethan went on to study at McGill University, where he graduated with a major in jazz bass performance and a minor in computer science. He remained in Montreal for the next three years, quickly becoming a staple of the local music scene. He began traveling frequently to take part in residencies and festivals including the Banff Workshop for Jazz & Creative Music, the Generations International Jazz Festival, and the Umbria Jazz Festival. He also founded The Plastic Waste Band, a psychedelic jazz-rock group known for their ecological themes and genre-defying sound.

In 2020, Ethan was selected to be a part of the Focusyear band, a year-long jazz ensemble residency program located in Basel, Switzerland. He and the band toured throughout Europe and worked with artists including Wolfgang Muthspiel, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Lionel Loueke, Guillermo Klein, Jen Shyu, Miguel Zenon, Sam Amidon, Ingrid Jensen, Brad Mehldau, and Larry Grenadier.

After returning to New York in 2021, Ethan pursued a master’s degree in The New School’s Performer-Composer program, completing his studies in 2023 with a focus on improvisation, electroacoustic music, and creative technology. Through The New School, Ethan studied privately with Reid Anderson, Levy Lorenzo, Dave Douglas, Buster Williams, Elliot Cole, and Drew Gress.

A dedicated teacher, Ethan is a visiting instructor in digital audio and creative coding at The Pratt Institute’s Department of Digital Arts and Animation, a guitar and bass instructor at Midori & Friends, and a private SAT/ACT tutor.

Ethan currently lives in a small apartment in NYC’s East Village, and can be found playing bass around the city with various groups.