BIO
“KOHÁN is something else. An artist on a completely different level.”
Hungarian clarinetist, composer, and visual artist living in Japan. At 19, KOHÁN won First Prize at the ICA Young Artist
Competition—one of the most important international clarinet competitions in the world. He then moved to Japan and
won First Prize and Audience Prize at the Tokyo Music Competition in 2013. In 2015 he won Japan’s most prestigious music
competition, the Japanese Music Competition, and in the same year also took First Prize at the Japan Woodwind
Competition and the Grand Prix at the Akiyoshidai Music Competition. In total: 25 prizes at 15 competitions across two
continents. After finishing his studies at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest, he was appointed lecturer at Tokyo
College of Music at just 26 years old. Japan’s The Clarinet magazine called him “the new hero of the clarinet world.” He
received the Aoyama Music Award in 2017. His clarinet solo was featured on the soundtrack of NHK’s Taiga drama The 13
Lords of the Shogun—released on Sony Music and heard by tens of millions of people. Japanese music media call him a “total
artist.”
As a soloist, KOHÁN has performed with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, and
the Kioi Sinfonietta, with conductors including Antonio Méndez, Ken-David Masur, and Keitaro Harada. He has been
invited to major festivals including the Tokyo Spring Festival, La Folle Journée au Japon, and Suntory Hall’s Chamber Music
Garden, and performed together with artists such as Víkingur Ólafsson, Radek Baborák, Mayuko Kamio, Kristóf Baráti,
Michael Collins, Mathieu Dufour, and István Várdai. He has released five albums on his own label, Lakeshore Music—from
Contrasts (2015) to Life Book (2023)—all available on streaming platforms worldwide.
KOHÁN’s music comes from Hungary. His father is a klezmer clarinetist with the Budapest Klezmer Band, and KOHÁN
grew up with klezmer, Hungarian folk, and Gypsy music around him every day—long before he ever listened to classical
music. At 10 years old, he performed in front of more than 1,000 people at the Madách Theatre in Budapest, at his father’s
band anniversary concert. That was the moment he decided he wanted to be a soloist. At 24, a friend asked him to write a
piece for a concert. In one week he wrote Konzertstück à la Feidman—a work that has since become one of his most
performed and published compositions, played on stages around the world. When KOHÁN performs classical music, he
gives everything to bring the composer’s world to life. When he performs his own music, something different happens—every
rule falls away. It is music without a mask.
Since 2012, KOHÁN has been making cinematic videos of his own performances—long before this became normal in
classical music. His ongoing project, the Clarinet Anthology, records the complete clarinet repertoire as cinematic YouTube
videos—a personal legacy, built one piece at a time. He currently teaches at Senzoku Gakuen College of Music, leads the
Alpha Clarinet Ensemble across Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, and through his Kohán Method has worked with more than
1,000 students during his career in Japan.
As an official Backun Musical Services Artist since 2020, KOHÁN plays on instruments that match his highest standards—so
he can focus completely on the music, and nothing else.
