Gary Cooper

Gary Cooper studied at Chetham's School of Music and at New College, Oxford. He is now established as one of the foremost ambassadors of the harpsichord and fortepiano - in particular, as an interpreter of Bach’s & Mozart’s keyboard music – and as a director of period performances in concert and opera.

Since making his solo Wigmore Hall debut, he now performs across Europe, N. America & Asia, and has made countless recordings, including an award-winning CD of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier.

He has a duo partnership with baroque violinist RACHEL PODGER (more...) which has taken them worldwide. They have recorded the Complete Sonatas for Keyboard & Violin by Mozart receiving countless awards and accolades, including multiple Diapason d’Or and Gramophone Editor’s Choices.

Recent operas includes Handel’s Alcina and Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Seraglio; a new production Handel's Orlando at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London, and opera in Belgium and Germany. He directs the Irish Baroque Orchestra, the Akademie für Alte Musik, Arion in Montreal, and is ‘Artist in Residence’ of the new Belgian period instrument ensemble, B’Rock and will direct them in their UK debut in the Wigmore Hall in December 2009. Gary appears at major festivals across Europe such as the Flanders, Bruges, Utrecht, Potsdam and Innsbruck and throughout the UK.

Gary currently teaches harpsichord & fortepiano at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Birmingham Conservatoire and at York University, and is visiting professor at the Royal College of Music.

Solo recording projects range from Bach’s Keyboard Concerti and the Goldberg Variations to late Beethoven Sonatas and the Diabelli Variations. Gary has released this year aleeady cds of “La Passione” Haydn Symphonies 41, 49 & 44 with the Canadian Orchestre Baroque ARION for the label early-music.com and, for Channel Classics, of Haydn : Late Piano Works – “Recommended without reservations!” (SA-CD.net)

*“something of a genius” (The Times)

“music-making rarely comes as impressive as this” (The Sunday Times)*