BJ Kocen

BJ Kocen has been on the music scene for decades now. His work really started to get noticed in the early days of the Ashland Coffee and Tea where he opened for Todd Snider, hosted and won The Singer Songwriter Showdown, and played many shows there with some of the top musicians in the area. BJ then broke off and founded his own music series hosted at The Barksdale Theatre called "Stretchin" which lasted for five years. His first solo release, "The Breaks," was produced by Paul Curreri and gave BJ the lift he needed to keep writing and improving.

It took Kocen three years to finish a most ambitious project, "Searching for Signal / Old Lake." This double album features 20+ musicians and truly is two separate albums packaged together. "Searching for Signal" is a highly arranged studio effort whereas "Old Lake" was recorded live to focus on performance. This massive efforts features the talents of Brad Tucker (The Taters), Jeff Bunn (Funkadelic), Steve Bassett, Jackie Frost and many others from Richmond and Charlottesville's finest.

BJ is proud Co-Owner of the glave kocen gallery and has been working with the love of his life Jennifer Glave there for almost ten years. When not playing music or working at the gallery, BJ enjoys Disc Golf, Beachcombing, and Foodie-"ing" all over Virginia.