Composer, teacher and performer John Cooper began writing songs at the age of thirteen. He earned a bachelor’s in piano and a master’s degree in Music Composition at the University of Missouri, and studied piano and workshopped with Nadia Boulanger at American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France. A turning point occurred in his career when he received a Fulbright grant to create a Western music program for the Calcutta School of Music in India. There, he came to appreciate the music possibilities of a wedding between Western and Indian music, as illustrated in Three Songs in Eastern Mode, Songs of the Woodlands, and Seven Pieces for Piano in Eastern Mode. Cooper has lectured on the relationship between the music of India and the West throughout the United States and southeast Asia. He is a MacDowell Fellow, co-founder of the Cooper Music Studios and the East-West Chamber Ensemble (now the Paramita Chamber Ensemble) president of the East-West Music Edition, member of ASCAP, and adjudicator for the National Guild of Piano Teachers.
Cooper’s works have been performed in Asia, Europe, and the United States. He has recently completed a full scale opera, Yosse, based on the Jewish folk tale, “The Parable of Pearls.” Other recent compositions include Monadnock Symphony, The 911 Requiem, written in response to the World Trade Center attack, and The Peace Cantata, written as a result of Cooper’s involvement in a pilgrimage following the historical path of slavery from Massachusetts to South Africa. His honors include two grants from the Columbia University Ditson Fund, a grant from the John Anson Kittredge Educational fund, a Fulbright grant to teach in India and the Paulina Arts Award.
