Jennifer Cohen is a music educator who has taught piano for over 35 years. She enjoys teaching students of all ages – whether it is preparing them for college auditions, or teaching them how to read music.
Currently Jen serves as music director at the Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Society in Middlebury, where she directs the choir and performs with an array of guest musicians. Jen has played keyboard for and/or directed many community and high school musical theater productions, including West Side Story, Cats, Les Mis and Into the Woods.
Jen taught music in the public schools for 12 years. During this time she learned how to play steel pan. For the past seven years she has directed the Panhandlers, a 12-piece steel band that performs regularly around the state and beyond. She makes an annual trip to St. Lucia, to perform pan with Andy Narell and other notable pan players. She has been an artist-in-residence at nine public schools, teaching students about Caribbean music, and showing them how to play pan.
Jen received her MEd from the University of Vermont, and her BFA in piano performance from SUNY Purchase. She lives in Rutland.
