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Pianist
Imogen Cooper has been especially renowned for her
Mozart interpretations. A supremely versatile artist, she has performed as a solo recitalist, a chamber player, a concerto soloist, and a vocal accompanist.
Cooper was born on August 28, 1949, in London. Her father, Martin Cooper, was a musicologist.
Cooper's training had both French and classic Austrian elements: she enrolled as a preteen at the Paris Conservatory for studies with
Jacques Février and
Yvonne Lefébure, taking the school's coveted First Prize in piano.
Cooper went on to Vienna for studies with the great Classical-period specialists
Alfred Brendel,
Paul Badura-Skoda, and
Jörg Demus. Her London career was launched in 1969 with the Mozart Memorial Prize, and she has gone on to a schedule of international performances that have included multiple appearances with the
London Symphony,
New York Philharmonic, and
Boston Symphony, among others; in Boston, she was immediately invited for a return visit by conductor
Seiji Ozawa.
Cooper has been active as an accompanist, most often to baritone
Wolfgang Holzmair. She has played chamber music with the
Belcea Quartet, among others. Her repertory includes all five of
Beethoven's piano concertos and most of
Mozart's mature concertos; she has also often played the piano concertos of
Chopin, Piano Concerto in G major of
Ravel, the Piano Concerto in A major Op. 54, of
Schumann, and the Piano Concerto No. 3 of
Bartók.
Cooper has also given the premieres of several significant contemporary works, including
Thomas Adès's Traced Overhead (1996) and
Deirdre Gribbin's Decorated Skin (2003).
In the 1980s,
Cooper issued an acclaimed cycle of piano music from the last six years of Schubert's life. As a recording artist, she has been associated mostly with the Philips, Avie, and, most recently, Chandos labels; on Chandos, she issued the album
Iberia y Francia in 2019.