Jacob Cooper (composer)

Jacob Cooper is an American composer living in Brooklyn, NY.

Biography

After attending Amherst College for his bachelor’s degree in both geology and music,^[1] Cooper completed his graduate studies in composition at the Yale School of Music,^[2] and later formed the composers’ collective Sleeping Giant with several of his classmates.^[3] His works have been performed by the Calder Quartet, JACK Quartet, eighth blackbird, Minnesota Orchestra, Albany Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble ACJW, NOW Ensemble, Dither Quartet, Living Earth Show, Carmina Slovenica, Mellissa Hughes, Timo Andres, Ashley Bathgate, and Vicky Chow.^[4]

Cooper’s national awards include a Music Alive Residency Award from New Music USA,^[5] a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters,^[6] and a Morton Gould Young Composer Award from ASCAP.^[7] He was also the winner of the 2011 Carsblad Music Festival Composers’ Competition^[8] and has been hailed by the New York Times as "richly talented"^[9] and by The New Yorker as a "maverick song composer."^[10]

Also dedicated to teaching and scholarship, Cooper has served on the faculty at Amherst College^[11] and authors program notes for Carnegie Hall.^[12]

Works

Cooper’s largest projects include Timberbrit, an opera that imagines Britney Spears’ last concert and reunion with Justin Timberlake,^[13] and Silver Threads, a song cycle for voice and electronic track, to be released by Nonesuch Records in April 2014.^[14] These works highlight Cooper’s focus on slow development and the stretching of musical time.^[15] Many of Cooper’s compositions involve live processing and electronics, and his interest in the digital realm extends to visual media: his video series Triptych was screened at the 2012 MATA Festival,^[16] and his piece Commencer une autre mort was shortlisted for the Guggenheim exhibit YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video (2010).^[17]

Compositions and Projects

Opera

• Timberbrit (2008, revised 2010) for male vocalist, female vocalist, guitar, keyboard, drumset, and laptop

Orchestral / large ensemble

• Serenade (2013) for 2 vocalists and 16 instrumentalists
• Stabat Mater Dolorosa (2009) for string orchestra and 4 amplified voices
• Odradek (2006) for full orchestra

Chamber

• Cast (2014) for chamber ensemble
• Agitated, stumbling, like an endless run-on sentence (2011) for cl, bsn, tpt, tbn, perc, vln, db
• bad black bottom kind (2011, rev. 2013) for string quartet
• Cello Octet (2010)

Solo (and solo with electronic track / laptop)

• Silver Threads (2011–13) song cycle for voice with electronic track
• La Plus Que Plus Que Lente (2013) for piano with laptop
• Arches (2012) for cello with laptop
• Clifton Gates (2011) for piano with laptop
• Alter Ad Alterum (2011) for accordion with laptop
• Not Just Another Piece for Solo Bass Drum (2005)

Video

• Triptych:
  • Commencer une autre mort (2010)
  • Black or White (2012)
  • Alla stagion dei fior (2012)

Discography

• Silver Threads (Nonesuch Records, release in April 2014) with Mellissa Hughes, soprano

External links

• Official website
• Nonesuch Records artist page
• WQXR Profile

References