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©2009 by Lynn Bechtold, All
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Dan Cooper's music has been noted in
The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Associated Press, Fanfare Magazine,
American Record Guide, Berkshire Eagle, Greenwich Times, Metroland Albany,
Albany Times Union, CurtainUp, and New Music Connoisseur, among others -
"contemporary impressionism," "inventive," "drawing
on vernacular styles," "vibrant," "capricious,"
"especially fascinating," “full of instrumental virtuosity and sly
humor,” "utterly charming amidst a throbbing swirl of cacophony, all of
it making unexpected sense," "virtuosic,"
"whimsical," "carefree," "acute,"
"daring," "well-plotted," "hauntingly
beautiful," and with a "spirit of originality, verve, and humor,
now being passed on to a new generation." Cooper was born and raised in Manhattan, and educated at The
Horace Mann School, Columbia University, The New England Conservatory, and
Princeton University. Principal teachers include John Heiss, Steve Mackey,
and Paul Lansky. For several years, Cooper worked as an assistant to American
composer, flutist, and electronic music pioneer Otto Luening, who mentored
him in composition, orchestration, and musical life in general; with
Luening's recommendation, Cooper was awarded an ASCAP Young Composer's Prize
for his electronic setting of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky". He
also completed study at the Conservatoire de Nice and Fontainebleau, where he
attended masterclasses of Betsy Jolas and Philippe Manoury, and won a
composition prize. In 2000, Cooper was the Aaron Copland composition fellow at Tanglewood,
where he studied with Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Gandolfi, and Chen Yi, and
worked as an assistant to Louis Andriessen. At Tanglewood, Cooper has
composed and produced incidental music tracks for several acclaimed
Shakespeare and Company productions directed by Tina Packer and Daniela
Varon. In addition, Cooper's "Hawthorne Fanfare and Meditation" was
premiered at Tanglewood's Ozawa Hall, at a gala event featuring Mike Wallace,
Jane Fonda, David Strathairn, and Marisa Tomei. As a multi-instrumentalist specializing in 7-string bass guitar
and also flute with electronics, Cooper has performed all over the world, as
a member of singer Ute Lemper's trio, as well as the groups Vision Into Art,
Sound Liberation, Free Radicals, and Erbium. Venues include Royal Albert Hall,
Sydney Opera House, Town Hall, Berlin Philharmonic Hall, Staatsoper Berlin,
Bunkamura Orchard Hall, Chicago Theater, Davies Hall, Massey Hall, Royal
Festival Hall, The Blue Note, LPR, and Joe’s Pub among many others, plus
broadcasts on NBC, BBC, Radio France, Bravo, & RAI. Cooper endorses
Overwater bass guitars of Carlisle, U.K. Cooper’s music has been recognized with various awards, commissions, premieres, recordings, showcases,
and residencies from Albany Symphony, Albany Records, ASCAP, Artists
International, B3+, Cary Trust, Circadia, Electro-Music, Empire State Youth
Orchestra, Engine 27, Femmes Four, Imani Winds, ISC, Lumina String Quartet,
Majestic Brass, Meet the Composer, NARAS, NYNME, New York Youth Symphony,
Norwalk Youth Symphony, Palisades Virtuosi, and Sweet Plantain, among others.
He is currently on the faculty of the State University of New York/FIT, where
he has created new survey courses in American Music, European-Classical
Music, and Latin-American and Caribbean Music. In addition, Cooper teaches
music and Shakespeare classes at Greenwich House Senior Center in New York
City. He is a co-director of the chamber music series and record label
Composers Concordance, distributed by Naxos. State
University of New York/FIT |