Matt Cooper
Matt Cooper was a bronze medalist in the Thelonious Monk International Competition and the Great American Jazz Piano Competition (1987) and has toured with Woody Herman’s Young Thundering Herd. His professional performances credits include Clark Terry, Eddie Harris, Nancy King, David Friesen, John Stowell, Howard Levy, the Blue Wisp Big Band, Rob Blakeslee, Alan Jones, Bill Berry, Les Elgart, the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, Roger Williams, Jamey Aebersold, Jim Pepper, Marty Ehrlich, Rusty Bryant, Joshua Breakstone, Tom Kirkpatrick, Rich Perry, Sonny King, Warren Rand, Scott Wendholt, and many others. Other college concert appearances include Frank Foster, Frank Rosolino, Red Rodney, Jane Ira Bloom, Byron Stripling, John McNeil, Cal Collins, Jerry Coker, Jim Pugh, and others.
A native of Eugene, he earned his Bachelor of Music at the University of Oregon (B. Mus) and his Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts at the College-Conservatory of Music of the University of Cincinnati. While all three degrees were in Piano Performance, he also earned a Cognate Area in Jazz Studies at Cincinnati; his college jazz combo there won the downbeat magazine “deebee” award for “Best Instrumental Jazz Combo in the United States and Canada.” His doctoral thesis on Duke Ellington as a Pianist included some 60 pages of original transcriptions of Ellington’s solos.
He is also a classical pianist who has performed concertos with several orchestras in the Northwest United States and the Russian Far East (concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and Gershwin) and has given solo recitals, both all-classical, all-jazz, and combined classical and jazz, in the Northwest (Elsinore Theater Recital Series, Salem, Oregon; International Festival of Creative Pianists, Boise, Idaho; and two recitals at Washington State University) and in the Russian Far East (cities of Khabarovsk and Blagoveschensk). His recitals and concerts in Khabarovsk, Russia were the first ever to combine these two idioms on one concert.
He has performed with the Columbia Trio since 1999, performing repertoire by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Dvorak, Shostakovich, and Ellen Taafe Zwilich at the Camerata Musica series, Walla Walla Symphony chamber series, Grande Ronde Symphony chamber series, the Oregon Music Teachers Association and Washington State Music Teachers Association state conventions, and at other concerts in the Northwest. His piano four-hands performances with Beth Tomassetti have been heard on two concert tours, including appearances at Western Oregon University, several appearances at the Newport Coffee Concerts series, and on Northwest Public Radio, as well as in a live CD recording (available at www.northpacificmusic.com). His other festival and guest appearances include the noon concerts at the Oregon Bach Festival; Wallowa Lake Chamber Music Festival; University of Oregon Jazz Café series, Dayton Art Institute Cloister Series; and Jazz Live from the Hyatt (Cincinnati). He has been a guest artist at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville Jazz Festival, at Whitman College, and several community colleges.
Critics have described his improvisations as “thoughtful” (Washington Post) and “insistently original” (Eugene Register-Guard). Others have described his work as “tireless and masterful” (Dr. Sandra Ellston, EOU) and praised his “elegance and delicacy” (East Oregonian), “profound insight . . . stunning refinement and virtuosity” (conductor Kenneth Woods) and “.absolute clarity and sensitivity which truly touches the soul” (pianist/teacher Gail Swart).
Since 1991, he has taught piano and jazz studies at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, where he directs the jazz combo and performs frequently. His previous teaching credits include Central State University (Ohio); Northern Kentucky University; the Oregon Summer Music Institute; and the CCM Preparatory Department. He is a frequent clinican and adjudicator throughout the Northwest, including many festivals sponsored by Music Teachers Associations in Oregon, Washington, Montana and Idaho, as well as the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Performance Competitions in Washington and Montana. He is a past president of Oregon Music Teachers Association (2002-2004).
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