Dr. Cora Cooper, Professor of Music at Kansas State
University, teaches violin, viola, chamber music and string techniques.
She holds graduate degrees in violin performance from the Eastman School
of Music and Florida State University, and has studied with Peter Salaff,
Charles Castleman, Linda Cerone, Thomas and Evelyn Read, Karen Clarke and
Eliot Chapo. Her work with music by women composers has led to performances
of music by Lili Boulanger, Margaret Lucy Wilkins, Alice Ho, Maddalena Lombardini-Sirmen
and Ethel Barns at the Festival of Women Composers at Indiana University
of Pennsylvania four times, and lectures in the United States and England
on "The ‘Babe-ification' of Women in Classical Music." She also co-edited
an edition of Six Duettos for Two Violins by Maddalena Lombardini-Sirmen
with Karen Clarke, which is published by Hildegard Publishing Company. Dr.
Cooper was chair of the violin committee for the 1997 edition of the ASTA
String Syllabus, and has been a contributor to both the AST Journal and
GIA Publications' Teaching Music Through Performance in Orchestra.
An active chamber musician in the Midwestern United States, Cooper
has performed with pianist Robert Moeling, violinists Scott St. John and
Paul Rosenthal, and cellists Evan Drachman and Eric Edberg. She performs
on Baroque, modern and occasionally electric violin, and viola. Cooper had
the rare experience of playing third violin when she joined the Da Vinci
String Quartet to record Charles Martin Loeffler's Quintet in One Movement
for NAXOS, American Classics. She has had professional symphony experience
playing with the Vermont, Austin and Tallahassee Symphonies, as well as numerous
regional orchestras in the Southeast. Cooper was a faculty member at the
Adult Chamber Music Festival in Bozeman, Montana, for nine years, and
at the Arkansas Music Festival for three years.
Cooper also serves as faculty advisor to the K-State student chapter of ASTA, bringing in guest artists each year for master classes and concerts. In addition to her college teaching, she maintains an active private studio.
Sound clip of Debussy Violin Sonata, with Bill Wingfield,
piano (338K WAV)
Sound clip of Maddalena Lombardini-Sirmen Duetto #6 in C Major
on baroque violins, with Professor Karen Clarke, Florida State University
(334K WAV)
The Trio Débranché (with David Littrell, cello, and
Joe Brumbeloe, piano) performing Mozart Piano Trio K.502 in Bb Major.
(363K WAV)
Send e-mail to Cora Cooper