Ep. 28: Interview with William Cooper

Welcome to Clexical, the podcast dedicated to contemporary classical music! I’m your host, [Kweku Adusei-Poku]. Here you will listen to conversations with living contemporary composers about their work, their journey as musicians and their thoughts on the current new music scene. Join us as we explore and influence the vibrant world of contemporary classical music. To learn more about our work, please visit www.clexical.org. You can find videos of all the interviews we’ve done so far, the outreach programs we’ve done with schools and libraries, and our weekly blog posts discussing the current new music scene. Today’s interview will be conducted by Laurentia Woo.   William Cooper has had a very diverse career as not just a composer, but as a pianist and conductor as well. His music has been acclaimed by Augustin Hadelich, the Julliard Orchestra, Trio 180, the JACK Quartet, and the Lysander Trio, and has been performed at the Radio France Festival and the Wellesley Composer Conference.    Along with holding positions on the faculty at Purdue University, Vincennes University and Interlochen Arts Camps since summer of 2010, he founded the choral department at Ben Davis University.   Cooper received ASCAP awards in 2004 and 2007, and the 2012 Leo Kaplan Award, the highest prize awarded in the ASCAP Morton Gould awards. As a passionate devotee of early music, he was the recipient of the 2012 David S. Saxon award from the UC Davis music department for excellence in performance of early music. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D in music composition at UC Davis, studying composition with Pablo Ortiz, and conducting research on English Renaissance music with Jessie Ann Owens.