KENNETH COOPER: HARPSICHORD
Kenneth Cooper, harpsichordist, pianist, musicologist and conductor, is one of the world’s leading specialists in the music of the 18th century and one of America’s most exciting and versatile performers.
Renowned for his improvisations and his expertise in ornamentation--long-lost 18th century arts—he has revived countless musical works, lending them extraordinary authenticity as well as great vitality. The possessor of a Ph.D. in musicology from Columbia University, Kenneth Cooper is on the faculty there as well as at Manhattan School of Music, where he is chair of the harpsichord department and director of the Baroque Aria Ensemble. READ MORE
Renowned for his improvisations and his expertise in ornamentation--long-lost 18th century arts—he has revived countless musical works, lending them extraordinary authenticity as well as great vitality. The possessor of a Ph.D. in musicology from Columbia University, Kenneth Cooper is on the faculty there as well as at Manhattan School of Music, where he is chair of the harpsichord department and director of the Baroque Aria Ensemble. READ MORE
ABQ ARTIST SERIES
January, 18, 1987
KENNETH COOPER, HARPSICHORD
and the
ANNAPOLIS BRASS QUINTET
Robert Suggs, trumpet; David Cran, trumpet; Arthur Brooks, horn;
Wayne Wells, trombone; Robert Posten, bass trombone & tuba
January, 18, 1987
KENNETH COOPER, HARPSICHORD
and the
ANNAPOLIS BRASS QUINTET
Robert Suggs, trumpet; David Cran, trumpet; Arthur Brooks, horn;
Wayne Wells, trombone; Robert Posten, bass trombone & tuba
To think of an entire program for harpsichord and brass quintet may sound like an impossible task given the inherent dynamic differences between the instruments.
But when the collaborator is Kenneth Cooper, a skilled composer and arranger in addition to being a versatile virtuoso harpsichordist who is known for thinking outside the box, it became an enlightening and entertaining enterprise.
Baroque music being the customary domain for the harpsichord, Cooper arranged the following two works from that period:
But when the collaborator is Kenneth Cooper, a skilled composer and arranger in addition to being a versatile virtuoso harpsichordist who is known for thinking outside the box, it became an enlightening and entertaining enterprise.
Baroque music being the customary domain for the harpsichord, Cooper arranged the following two works from that period:
|
Sinfonia from Bach's Cantata 29
has the harpsichord playing the obligato organ part from the original. Duration: (03:31) To Listen Tap > Audio Bar Below |
Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Trumpets
features Kenneth Cooper in a dazzlingly improvisatory middle movement. Duration: (07:20) To Listen Tap > Audio Bar Below |
HENRY BRANT: DIVINITY
Henry Brant was born in Montreal to American parents in 1913. He began composing at the age of eight, and studied first at the McGill Conservatorium (1926–29) and then in New York City (1929–34). He played violin, flute, tin whistle, piano, organ, and percussion at a professional level and was fluent with the playing techniques for all of the standard orchestral instruments.
As a 19-year-old, Brant was the youngest composer included in Henry Cowell's landmark book from 1933, American Composers on American Music; and Cowell praised Brant as "a musician with knowledge, technique, original ideas, feeling, something to say, and courage" These words would acquire a new significance sixty years later; years filled with Brant's exploration with his idea that "Space is an Essential Aspect of Musical Composition."
Thereafter Brant composed, orchestrated, and conducted for radio, film, ballet, and jazz groups. The stylistic diversity of these early professional experiences would also eventually contribute to the manner of his mature output. Starting in the late 1940s, he taught at Columbia University, the Juilliard School and, for 24 years, Bennington College. READ MORE
Here and there, a composer such as Elliott Carter has used the harpsichord successfully by exploiting its very differences from today's modern instruments.
As a 19-year-old, Brant was the youngest composer included in Henry Cowell's landmark book from 1933, American Composers on American Music; and Cowell praised Brant as "a musician with knowledge, technique, original ideas, feeling, something to say, and courage" These words would acquire a new significance sixty years later; years filled with Brant's exploration with his idea that "Space is an Essential Aspect of Musical Composition."
Thereafter Brant composed, orchestrated, and conducted for radio, film, ballet, and jazz groups. The stylistic diversity of these early professional experiences would also eventually contribute to the manner of his mature output. Starting in the late 1940s, he taught at Columbia University, the Juilliard School and, for 24 years, Bennington College. READ MORE
Here and there, a composer such as Elliott Carter has used the harpsichord successfully by exploiting its very differences from today's modern instruments.
Henry Brant succeeds that way, too, in his deliciously quirky Divinity, an amusing study in contrasted sonorities subtitled "Dialogues in the Form of Secret Portraits", so we had to include that piece.
HENRY BRANT'S DIVINITY
"Dialogues in the Form of Secret Portraits"
Duration: (10:31)
Kenneth Cooper, harpsichord
Annapolis Brass Quintet
To listen Tap > Audio Bar Below
(There may be a slight delay before sound begins.)
HENRY BRANT'S DIVINITY
"Dialogues in the Form of Secret Portraits"
Duration: (10:31)
Kenneth Cooper, harpsichord
Annapolis Brass Quintet
To listen Tap > Audio Bar Below
(There may be a slight delay before sound begins.)
For Brant's Divinity the brass players are positioned at widely separated points in the hall, and take up musical ideas thrown out by the harpsichord for discussion, responding with grumbles, and mutterings, and then sustained trumpet and trombone moaning to which the harpsichord responds with typical baroque-like melodies, and at the end the horn player joins with harpsichord onstage for some closer harmonies.
Kenneth Cooper has an affinity for Ragtime music. For our concerts together he wrote his 78 rpm Rag for brass quintet alone. It is a humorous attempt to depict what an old time recording played on a Victrola with a skipping needle might have sounded like. Harpsichord and brass followed with Tom Turpin's 1982 Harlem Rag, the first Ragtime piece ever published.
KENNETH COOPER'S
78 RPM RAG
&
TOM TURPIN'S
HARLEM RAG
Duration: (05:13)
Tap on > Audio Bar Below
KENNETH COOPER'S
78 RPM RAG
&
TOM TURPIN'S
HARLEM RAG
Duration: (05:13)
Tap on > Audio Bar Below
FOSTERING BRASS CHAMBER MUSIC
The score and parts for Henry Brant's DIVINITY and Kenneth Cooper's 78 RPM RAG, along with the entire ABQ music library, are available for research and performance from the Oberlin Conservatory.
For direct access: ABQ Special Collection @ Oberlin Conservatory Library
Tap Here
The score and parts for Henry Brant's DIVINITY and Kenneth Cooper's 78 RPM RAG, along with the entire ABQ music library, are available for research and performance from the Oberlin Conservatory.
For direct access: ABQ Special Collection @ Oberlin Conservatory Library
Tap Here