Known especially for his virtuosic chamber music performances, violinist
Jameson Cooper has enjoyed an international reputation across Europe and in the United States. A native of Sheffield, England,
Cooper started taking violin lessons when he was six, and he became a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain at 13. He was also the concertmaster of the National Youth Chamber Orchestra of Great Britain, before continuing his music studies at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where he earned his graduate of music degree with honors and a professional performance diploma. He earned Master's degrees in violin and conducting at Kent State University, and taught violin and viola as an assistant professor there. His teachers have included Dorothy DeLay, Masao Kawasaki, Roland Vamos, and Almita Vamos.
Cooper has performed as a soloist with orchestras and as a recitalist, though he is best known for his performances with chamber ensembles. He played with the Audubon Quartet in their series of
Ludwig van Beethoven's string quartets, and was a founding member of the
Euclid Quartet, with whom he has recorded works by Hugo Kauder,
Antonin Dvorák, and
Wynton Marsalis, as well as a complete cycle of the string quartets of
Béla Bartók.
Cooper has been a judge for the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition at the University of Notre Dame, and he has taught master classes at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Michigan State University, and Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa.
Cooper was a faculty member at the Lyceum Music School in Oldham, England, and at Indiana University. He recorded the violin duets of Louis Spohr with James Dickinson for Naxos, and the first volume in the series was released in 2018.