Jacob Cooper (composer)

Updated on Jan 08, 2024

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Birth name Jacob Mauney Cooper Name Jacob Cooper Occupation(s) Composer, educator Record label Nonesuch Records		Years active 2005–present Albums Silver Threads Labels Nonesuch Records

Genres Contemporary classical, electronic, experimental Website www.jacobcoopermusic.com Role Composer · jacobcoopermusic.com Similar People Ted Hearne, Christopher Cerrone, Froy Aagre, Timo Andres, Popnoname

Jacob cooper silver threads

Jacob Mauney Cooper (born 1980) is an American composer from in Brooklyn, New York.

Silver threads unspun by jacob cooper

Biography

After attending Amherst College for his bachelor's degree in both geology and music, Cooper completed his graduate studies in composition at the Yale School of Music, and later formed the composers’ collective Sleeping Giant with several of his classmates. 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.

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

Also dedicated to teaching and scholarship, Cooper has served on the faculty at Amherst College and authors program notes for Carnegie Hall. He currently teaches at West Chester University.

Works

Cooper’s largest projects include Timberbrit, an opera that imagines Britney Spears’ last concert and reunion with Justin Timberlake, and Silver Threads, a song cycle for voice and electronic track, to be released by Nonesuch Records in April 2014. These works highlight Cooper’s focus on slow development and the stretching of musical time. 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, and his piece Commencer une autre mort was shortlisted for the Guggenheim exhibit YouTube Play: A Biennial of Creative Video (2010).

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

References

Jacob Cooper (composer) Wikipedia

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