Dr. Benjamin D. Koen
Associate Professor
Medical Ethnomusicology; Music, the Mind, and Meditation; Jazz and World Music;Improvisation and Creativity; Holistic Health, Fitness, and Entrepreneurship
Directed Studies Concentration Coordinator
Office: DLB805
Tel.: 34112867
E-mail: benkoen@hkbu.edu.hk

Benjamin D. Koen is an international leader in the research, practice, performance, and teaching of music, meditation, improvisation, healing, health, and wellness. Dr. Koen is involved in several interrelated projects exploring music, the mind, and meditation in healing and wellbeing, goal achievement, and entrepreneurship. His focus is on the universal principles and processes that illuminate how music, specialized sound, and meaning can generate new neural pathways and bridge the conscious and subconscious mind to create an intended outcome via a complexhe models through music-mind dynamics, neuroplasticity, psychological flexibility, entrainment,embeingment, and the Human Certainty Principle. Dr. Koen is also involved in several recordingprojects primarily focused on creative improvised music, jazz-world music, and musicalmeditations for healing, health, and wellbeing.

Dr. Koen works across several areas in music and the arts, the social and health sciences, themedical humanities, and is a widely published author, including two ground-breaking books withOxford University Press—The Oxford Handbook of Medical Ethnomusicology; and Beyond theRoof of the World: Music, Prayer, and Healing in the Pamir Mountains. His articles appear insuch journals as Ethnomusicology, Asian Music, The World of Music, ETHOS: The Journal ofPsychological Anthropology, College Music Symposium, Studies on Persianate Societies,American Music Teacher, Humanities International, and the Journal of Anthropological Studies,among others. Dr. Koen’s research and creative activities have been supported by grants andfellowships from the NEH, NEA, the U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and AreaStudies program (Persian-speaking cultures), and the U.S. Department of Health and HumanServices where he served as a consultant and faculty member for the Longitudinal Training inMind-Body-Spirit Medicine in Primary Care. Koen served as a reviewer and consultant for theAustrian Academy of Sciences and Harvard University Max-Kade Fellowship Program in medicalethnomusicology, is an Oxford University Press editor and Advisory Board Member for MedicalEthnomusicology, an assessor for the Australian Research Council, and was a representative andMusic Presenter for the Smithsonian Institution’s program The Silk Road – Connecting Cultures,Creating Trust.

Dr. Koen’s research in medical ethnomusicology, performances in jazz and world music, lectures,teaching, and entrepreneurship have taken him to over 50 countries, including a four yearresidency in New York City and eight years in Asia. Prior to joining HKBU, Dr. Koen held thepositions of Distinguished Professor of Medical Ethnomusicology, Medical and PsychologicalAnthropology, and Medical Humanities at Xiamen University, Professor of InterdisciplinaryHumanities and Global Pathways Faculty at Florida State University, and Tenured AssociateProfessor of Medical Ethnomusicology at the Florida State University College of Music (USA).

As a critically acclaimed jazz-world musician and improviser (tenor and soprano saxophones,world flutes, hand drums, didgeridoo), composer, and recording artist, Benjamin’s music andperformances have appeared on a number of recordings, in film, television, on the web, and arefeatured in national and international journals, music textbooks, and music and arts programs.He has performed with such legendary figures as Cecil Taylor, David Murray, BabatundeOlatunji, William Parker, Fred Hopkins, Billy Bang, Dennis Charles, Marvin “Bu-ga-lu” Smith, TeteMontoliu, and Hank Marr, as well as D.D. Jackson, Hamiet Bluiett, James Spaulding, DocHolliday, Rodney Jordan, Roger Hines, Santi Debriano, Victor Lewis, Leon Anderson, Susie Ibarra,Bern Nix, Rez Abbasi, Jim Nolet, Christian Howes, Jason Hwang, Craig Harris, Frank Lacy, JoeFiedler, Bob Stewart, Lawrence Butch Morris, David Amram, Haiqiong Deng, I Gusti AgungNgurah Suparta, Gualberto, Cooper Moore, Kim Pensyl, The Columbus Symphony Orchestra, TheChris Jonas Group, Bob Dorough, Jeanette Williams, Lisa Sokolov, and the Improviser’s CollectiveN.Y.C., among others.

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