Steve Kohlmann Music
About
Born in Dublin City to a musical family, Stephen began playing the drums at age 5. At the age of fifteen, he started formal lessons with his father Rolf Kohlmann, a drummer veteran of the Earl Gill swing and show bands. Seeing his Dad perform during this period helped formulate Stephen’s awareness of playing within an ensemble.
Seeking to broaden his horizons Stephen took lessons with Des Lacey. Des is an impeccable drummer and his skill as a drummer transcends to his teaching ability. The clarity of his explanations and patience helped Stephen successfully branch out into other genres of music.
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During this period Stephen began to play in the funk/soul band Slowhand Row with his brother Scott on guitar. The band tested Stephen's versatility with original compositions by Peter O'Grady requiring varying groove interpretations.
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In 2000 after completing secondary school Stephen went onto to study Music Management at Ballyfermot College. For the two years Stephen studied here he continued his lessons with Des and took up a weekly Jazz improvisation class at the prestigious Newpark Music Centre. These classes encouraged Stephen to take his Jazz studies further and after completing his honors diploma in music management he auditioned for Newpark's BA in Jazz performance.

Stephen studied in Newpark from 2002 to 2008 and during this time he was taught by many of Irelands leading music educators and performers including Conor Guilfoyle, Ronan Guilfoyle, Kevin Brady, Paul Wertico, Ralph Peterson and Sean Carpio. Stephen's particular interests during his degree were performance and pedagogy.

In 2006 Stephen got the opportunity to perform with grammy nominated Sophie B Hawkins and began his teaching career with the Churchtown school of music. Building on these successes and on the completion of his degree in 2008 Stephen moved to Portlaoise and took up the full-time performance roll in Transmitter. The band allowed Stephen to experiment with Roland sequencers and click tracks in a live set of music comprising of originals and covers.
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The summer of 2009 brought Stephen and his longtime original band Slowhand Row the opportunity to record their debut album Momentum. Producer and multi-instrumentalist Lance Hogan was the recording engineer and with his timeless efforts helped the band to produce a great album.
Late 2009 saw Stephen return to Dublin where he resumed his teaching position in Churchtown School of Music and took up the percussion role in Castlepark primary school. From 2009 to 2011 Stephen performed on a freelance basis and had the pleasure of performing with many of Irelands finest musicians.
During this time Stephen met virtuoso guitar player Stefan Galt and formed the trio The Way Back When band. Influenced by Tommy Emanuel and Chet Atkins the band developed tight arrangements of classic standards. The trio allowed Stephens creativity to flow and called upon some expressive brush playing. As Stephen notes 'I am very grateful that Kevin Brady made me play the rudimental ritual and Wilcoxin solos with brushes!'
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Regular performances in 2011 led the trio to perform at the Knockanstockan festival and the prestigious Sligo Jazz Project (SJP). To capture the creative arrangements of the trio they decided to record an album. To keep the creativity of the trio alive the band recorded with no overdubs and only performed two takes per song. The album consists of 12 songs all recorded in one day.
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In the summer of 2011 Stephen auditioned and was offered the drum chair in the Sugarcubes. The position in the band has awarded Stephen the opportunity to play with some of Irelands legendary artists such as Johnny Logan, Niamh Kavanagh, Dickie Rock and Ronan Collins. The band performed Nationwide tours delivering impeccable professionalism and quality to the artists they performed with.

A recent production brought the band the rewarding experience of performing with all of Irelands Eurovision winners. Stephens pursuit of improving his performance and pedagogy skills led him to pursue an MMus in performance through DIT conservatory of music. Stephen's dissertation 'A Pedagogy aid for Jazz Brushes' is available on the prestigious Percussive Arts Society (PAS) website and is available to read on request in DIT conservatory of music. During his time here Stephen's tutors were Noel Eccles and Mike Nielson.

In the summer of 2012 composer, arranger, accomplished pianist and long time friend Kieran Quinn presented Stephen with the challenge of playing tuned percussion on a production of West Side Story. From performing on this musical Stephen was offered the percussion position in St. Andrews junior school.
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Stephen took a change of direction in 2013 to pursue his studies in Computer Science. Stephen graduated with a Masters in Computer Science in September 2016 and is excited about the additional opportunities this qualification will bring to his career. Although the change of direction Stephen is very interested in collaborating with artists on new and exciting live or recording projects.
