Jeanine Cowen, 2018 June 29
Jeanine Cowen, Professor of Film Scoring, discusses her introduction to percussion as a youth, her undergraduate study of composition and performance at Northwestern University, and her transfer to Berklee in 1986. Cowen discusses music technologies, including the rise of digital editing techniques, the benefit of collaboration on film scoring, and the professional activities of women in music production and engineering. She describes her own return to Berklee as a faculty member in 2004 following several years as a freelance composer and working in software development. She also discusses her work with the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, the Leadership Development Program (established in 2015), and the Berklee Curriculum Redesign Initiative (CRI), which introduced minor areas of study and supported the liberal arts curriculum.
Composer, music producer, sound designer, and educator Jeanine Cowen was raised in Iowa and studied classical percussion at Northwestern University; in 1986, she transferred to Berklee College of Music, where she studied vibraphone and drums, graduating with a dual degree in film scoring and in music production and engineering. Following several years in software development and composing for film and video games, Cowen returned to Berklee as a professor in 2004, teaching sound production, audio implementation, and scoring for film and video games. She held roles in the Berklee Curriculum Redesign Initiative (which she administered for ten years), the Leadership Development Program (established in 2015), and the Berklee Global Jazz Institute. She also served as Vice President for Curriculum and Innovation (2011-2017), the Interim Dean of Academic Affairs in Valencia (2020), and the Acting Assistant Chair of the Film Scoring department (2020-2022). Cowen has composed for music, game, television, and film productions and is active in emerging VR/AR/XR technologies.
