Composer and Lyricist
2024 Kleban Prize finalist, 2018 Harrington Award Recipient
Pianist
Performed the complete solo piano works of Maurice Ravel
Organist
Concertizing and leading services at churches, cathedrals and temples in Manhattan
Lover of Nature
Botanist, scuba diver, wildlife photographer

Jack D. Coen was born in New York.  His musicianship began in the Bronx, where his grandparents settled after emigrating from Ireland. He learned to read music and play flute from his grandfather—also Jack Coen—who was a renowned traditional, Irish flautist. At age 7, Jack's family moved to Croton-on-Hudson, NY where he would spend the rest of his childhood and adolescence, and where classical piano became his passion and discipline. Simultaneously, he developed a love for theatre as he participated in local productions in the Broadway-professional-clad Croton-on-Hudson community.  By age 17 his favorite pastime was playing through the scores of Stephen Sondheim at the piano. 

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He subsequently attended Vanderbilt University and studied Music Composition and Theory. During his time in Nashville, TN, he not only deepened his proficiency as a classical pianist, but excelled as an organist surrounded by a thriving sacred music scene in America's Bible Belt. On his senior recital he performed both the Concord Sonata by Charles Ives and J.S. Bach's Canonic Variations on "Von Himmel Hoch." Nashville's musical vibrancy also broadened the scope of his taste as he became a proficient Jazz pianist. His interest in musical theatre did not wane during his time in Nashville and in February, 2016 he premiered his first original musical/documentary, "Folk & Flora," at the Sarratt Cinema. The show was a multimedia production featuring both video clips and live performances about flowers and their role in human lives. 

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Upon returning to New York after college, Jack began playing as an organ scholar at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine under the direction of Kent Tritle and the instruction of Ray Nagem. He also joined the BMI Lehman Engel Workshop as both a composer and lyricist where he received the 2018 Harrington Award for outstanding creative achievement in musical theatre writing. Now based in Manhattan, Jack has served as Director of Music and Organist at Church of the Epiphany in Gramercy since 2018. From 2019 to 2023 he served as Organist and Choir Director at Temple Emanu-El, New York’s largest synagogue. Since 2020 he has taught music theory and history as an adjunct lecturer at CUNY Baruch College. As an organist he has concertized in many sacred spaces in Manhattan—including Saint Malachy’s, Temple Emanu-El and St. Patrick’s Cathedral—and as a pianist has accompanied notable artists including Judy Kuhn, Rufus Wainwright and Harolyn Blackwell. He has performed the complete solo piano works of Maurice Ravel, one of his greatest influences as a composer. 

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For the past several years he has been developing a new, original musical, "Jo Jenkins Before the Galactic High Court of Consciousness," a comedic and existential allegory for the climate crisis in the form of a wacky alien invasion. For his work on this show he became a finalist for the 2024 Kleban Prize in Musical Theatre Writing. Stephen Sondheim called his work “remarkably craftsmanlike,” and “skillful and graceful.”

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When he isn't making music, Jack has a deep love of nature. He is a botanist, having studied at the NYBG in their Botany certificate program, a member of the Manhattan Orchid Society, an avid scuba diver, and an amateur wildlife photographer (see below). Much of Jack's work as an artist is concerned with the human relationship to the natural world. He is profoundly passionate about preserving biodiversity, and in 2022 worked as a gardener in Fire Island Pines with Gay Gardens, whose landscaping mission is to return native flora to spaces increasingly filled with invasive and non-native species. He has volunteered at Manitoga (the Russel Wright Design Center), and Teatown Lake Reservation, curating landscapes for the well-being of native plant species.