Cowen Named Interim Assistant Chair of Film Scoring at Berklee

Berklee has named composer, producer, and sound designer Jeanine Cowen as interim assistant chair of the Film Scoring Department.

Cowen trained at Northwestern University and graduated from Berklee, where she studied film scoring and music production and engineering. Cowen has completed graduate work in interactive design and game development from Savannah College of Art and Design. She has worked at Berklee in various roles in Boston and Valencia, Spain, since 2004. Cowen is a native of Bettendorf, Iowa, and currently resides in Auburndale, Massachusetts.

“Jeanine Cowen has always been a devoted and valued member of our Berklee faculty and staff, no matter what role she has held throughout the years,” said Sean McMahon, chair of the Film Scoring Department. “Her knowledge and experience from working as a composer across various media are greatly beneficial to the film scoring faculty and indispensable to our students. I look forward to a collaborative and exciting partnership as she serves in the interim assistant chair role.”

Cowen has served on development teams at the Education Development Center (EDC), Turbine Entertainment, and Turning Point Software. Her compositions can be found across various art and media, such as the documentary The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo, the critically acclaimed off-Broadway play Rapt, and Midway Games’ massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. Cowen’s work as a percussionist can be heard on music technologist and BerkleeNYC executive director Stephen Webber’s Stylus Symphony. She also served as an active advisor to the Alliance for Women Film Composers during its founding.

Cowen maintains an active teaching presence in audio and game development, as well as in music composition, production, and technology. She teaches both at the college and for Berklee Online, at Interlochen Arts Academy, and at Pluralsight. Cowen is a frequent speaker in the industry, representing the college at conferences in the U.S. and abroad. She has delivered talks at GameSoundCon, Espacio Fundación Telefónica, the Women in Film and Media Summit, and the Women’s Empower Symposium, among others.