Dr. Matt Cooper
Matt Cooper earned his DMA in Piano Performance and Literature, with a Cognate Area in Jazz Studies, from the College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati in 1994. Active as a jazz as well as classical pianist, he won third place prizes in the 1988 Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition and the 1988 Great American Jazz Piano Competition. As a jazz pianist, he has toured with Woody Herman’s Young Thundering Herd and performed with Eddie Harris, Nancy King, Clark Terry, Howard Levy, Jamey Aebersold, Les Elgart, the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, among others. He has visited Russia three times to perform jazz and classical concerts (sometimes combined) in major concert halls of several of the largest cities of the Far East region. He recorded an album of jazz sextet originals titled Clovis, featuring bassist Glen Moore of the renowned jazz group “Oregon.” One track from this album won a JPF Music Award for being one of the top three in the category of “Best Jazz Instrumental Song” in 2009. His book Duke Ellington as Pianist: A Study in Styles, featuring some 60 pages of original transcriptions
of Ellington piano solos, is due for publication by the College Music Society in autumn of 2012, and in May of 2012 he traveled to England where he presented his Ellington research and gave several jazz concerts with British musicians at the international conference of the Duke Ellington Society of the UK.
As a classical pianist, Dr. Cooper has performed concerto appearances with several orchestras of the Inland Northwest (Oregon East Symphony, Grande Ronde Symphony, and Inland Northwest Musicians) and with the Russian chamber orchestra Gloria. He
has appeared throughout Oregon, Washington and Idaho both as a solo and collaborative artist, including many festivals and recital series (International Festival of Creative Pianists, Elsinore Theater Recital Series, Piano Duet Festival by the Sea), appearances at Oregon and Washington State Music Teachers conferences, and concerts with his
own Columbia Trio. His piano duet performances with Beth Tomassetti have been heard on Northwest Public Radio, on two concert tours throughout Oregon, and on compact disc. He earned a diploma at the Intensive Tango Seminar at the Conservatory Argentino
Galvan in Buenos Aires, Argentina and has also studied the Taubman approach to piano technique for the past nine years. He has performed in master classes for Menahem Pressler, Leon Fleisher, Béla Siki, and many others. His most recent solo recitals have explored the theme of improvisation, in genres ranging from Baroque to modern, and
jazz to tango, in recitals in Oregon, Minnesota, and Iowa. A frequent adjudicator for MTNA-affiliated events throughout the Northwest, he has taught at Eastern Oregon
University since 1991.
