Share your Birthday with… Series

Karl Georg Kohn (born August 1, 1926 in Vienna, Austria) is an American composer, teacher and pianist. Kohn began playing the piano as a child in Vienna and, after he, at the age of 13, immigrated to the United States, continued his education in New York City and at Harvard (B.A., M.A.) where he studied composition with Walter Piston, Irving Fine, and Randall Thompson. He is W. M. Keck Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at Pomona College where he taught for over forty years. His students at Pomona included Douglas Leedy and David Noon and, privately, Frank Zappa and John McGuire.

With his wife, Margaret Kohn, he has had a long career as a duo-pianist in the United States and in Europe, with a repertoire focused on major 20th century works by Debussy, Bartók, Berio, Stravinsky, Messiaen, Ligeti, Reich, and Boulez. Kohn played in the US premiere of Boulez's Structures together with the composer.

Kohn's own works have been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestras, the Oakland Symphony, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.