Frank Cooper (musicologist)

Last updated
Frank Cooper
Born1938
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Florida State University
Occupation(s)Professor of Music, Frost School of Music at the University of Miami

Frank Cooper (born 1938, in Atlanta, Georgia) is currently[ when? ] Research Professor Emeritus, Musicology, at the Frost School of Music, University of Miami (Coral Gables, Florida), since retiring from his professorship in 2013, and is internationally known as the founder of the Festival of Neglected Romantic Music.

Contents

Education

He studied at Florida State University with John Boda, Edward Kilenyi and Ernst von Dohnányi. From 1963 to 1977, he was a member of the faculty at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Conductor

In 1968, he founded the Festival of Neglected Romantic Music, which he directed until 1977. The Festival almost immediately attracted the attention of Harold C. Schonberg, music critic of The New York Times , who ultimately credited Cooper with personally jump-starting international interest in the Romantic Revival in music. Many seminal works of the Romantic era that had not been heard since the 19th century received their first performances at the Festival. Schonberg and other critics commented on the high professional level of the presentations, and certain specific performers became associated with the Festival.

After being the executive director of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Arts Council, Cooper moved to Miami, where he directed the Dade County Council of Arts and Sciences before returning to teaching, first at the New World School of the Arts, then at the University of Miami. In 1994, he founded the Coral Gables Mainly Mozart Festival, a chamber music series held each summer, for which he was artistic director until 2012.

Pianist

As a pianist, his first recordings of piano concerti were by Brüll, Dreyschock and Raff, and of a substantial selection of salon music by Franz Hünten and Henri Herz (Genesis label). A selection of American harpsichord music that Cooper had just recorded for the American bicentennial in 1976 was lost when the producer left the master tapes on an Amtrak train, and they were never recovered. Cooper is often heard as both pianist and harpsichordist. He was the director of the Indianapolis Early Music Festival from 1973 to 2006.

The author of numerous annotations for LP and CD recordings, Cooper has published more than 50 articles on musical subjects, has provided program notes to major venues and has been the subject of numerous articles, reviews and broadcasts in the U.S., Canada, England, France, Italy, Netherlands and Serbia. A recipient of the Liszt Centennial Medal from the Hungarian Ministry of Culture, Cooper is senior advisor to Miami's Patrons of Exceptional Artists.

Piano recordings

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Itzhak Perlman</span> Israeli-American violinist (born 1945)

Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-American violinist. He has performed worldwide and throughout the United States, in venues that have included a state dinner for Elizabeth II at the White House in 2007, and at the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama. He has conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Westchester Philharmonic. In 2015, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Perlman has won 16 Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and four Emmy Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johann Nepomuk Hummel</span> Austrian composer and pianist (1778–1837)

Johann Nepomuk Hummel was an Austrian composer and virtuoso pianist. His music reflects the transition from the Classical to the Romantic musical era. He was a pupil of Mozart, Salieri and Haydn. Hummel significantly influenced later piano music of the 19th century, particularly in the works of Chopin, Liszt and Mendelssohn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jorge Bolet</span> Cuban-born American concert pianist, conductor and teacher (1914 - 1990)

Jorge Bolet was a Cuban-born American concert pianist, conductor and teacher. Among his teachers were Leopold Godowsky, and Moriz Rosenthal – the latter a renowned pupil of Franz Liszt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joachim Raff</span> German-Swiss composer and pianist (1822–1882)

Joseph Joachim Raff was a German-Swiss composer, pedagogue and pianist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esa-Pekka Salonen</span> Finnish conductor and composer (born 1958)

Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish conductor and composer. He is the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2024, he announced his resignation from the San Francisco Symphony upon the expiration of his contract in 2025.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alberto Ginastera</span> Argentine composer (1916–1983)

Alberto Evaristo Ginastera was an Argentine composer of classical music. He is considered to be one of the most important 20th-century classical composers of the Americas.

Sea Pictures, Op. 37 is a song cycle by Sir Edward Elgar consisting of five songs written by various poets. It was set for contralto and orchestra, though a distinct version for piano was often performed by Elgar. Many mezzo-sopranos have sung the piece.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick Stock</span> German conductor and composer (1872–1942)

Frederick Stock was a German conductor and composer, most famous for his 37-year tenure as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ahmet Adnan Saygun</span> Turkish composer

Ahmet Adnan Saygun was a Turkish composer, musicologist and writer on music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ignaz Brüll</span> Austrian musician

Ignaz Brüll was a Moravian-born pianist and composer who lived and worked in Vienna.

<i>Saltarello</i> Italian musical dance

The saltarello is a musical dance originally from Italy. The first mention of it is in Add MS 29987, a late-fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century manuscript of Tuscan origin, now in the British Library. It was usually played in a fast triple meter and is named for its peculiar leaping step, after the Italian verb saltare. This characteristic is also the basis of the German name Hoppertanz or Hupfertanz ; other names include the French pas de Brabant and the Spanish alta or alta danza.

Easley Rutland Blackwood Jr. was an American professor of music, concert pianist, composer, and the author of books on music theory, including his research into the properties of microtonal tunings and traditional harmony.

The Festival of Neglected Romantic Music was founded by musicologist Frank Cooper at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1968.

Jascha Silberstein, born Hannes Bruno Willer, was a German-born American musician. He was for thirty years first cellist of the orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Ritchie</span> New Zealand composer

Anthony Damian Ritchie is a New Zealand composer and academic. He has been a freelance composer accepting commissions for works and in 2018 he became professor of composition at The University of Otago after 18 years of teaching composition. Since 2020 he has been head of Otago's School of Performing Arts, a three-year position. His works number over two hundred, and include symphonies, operas, concertos, choral works, chamber music and solo works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky</span>

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer especially known for three very popular ballets: Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. He also composed operas, symphonies, choral works, concertos, and various other classical works. His work became dominant in 19th century Russia, and he became known both in and outside Russia as its greatest musical talent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anton Urspruch</span> German composer and pedagogue

Anton Urspruch was a German composer and pedagogue who belonged to the late German Romantic era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franz Hünten</span> German pianist and composer

Franz Hünten, also known as François Hünten, was a German pianist and composer of salon music.

References