Lindsay Cooper
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the double bass and cello player of the same name, see Lindsay L. Cooper.
| Lindsay Cooper | ||
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| Background information | ||
| Birth name | Lindsay Cooper | |
| Born | March 3, 1951 (age 56) Hornsey, London, England |
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| Genre(s) | Avant-progressive rock, Experimental, Free improvisation, Contemporary classical |
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| Occupation(s) | Musician, Composer | |
| Instrument(s) | Bassoon, Oboe | |
| Years active | 1971 – present | |
| Label(s) | Recommended, Victo | |
| Associated acts |
Henry Cow, News from Babel, Feminist Improvising Group, David Thomas |
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Lindsay Cooper (born 3 March 1951) is an English bassoon and oboe player, composer and political activist. Best known for her work with the band Henry Cow, she was also a member of Comus, National Health, News from Babel and David Thomas and the Pedestrians. She has collaborated with a number of musicians, including Chris Cutler and Sally Potter, and co-founded the Feminist Improvising Group. She has written scores for film and TV and a song cycle Oh Moscow which was performed live around the world in 1987. She has also recorded a number of solo albums, including Rags (1980), The Gold Diggers (1983) and Music For Other Occasions (1986).
Cooper was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1991, but did not disclose it to the musical community until 1998 when her illness prevented her from performing live.
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[edit] Biography
Lindsay Cooper was born in Hornsey, North London. She began piano lessons at the age of 11, but switched to bassoon a few years later. Between 1965 and 1968 she studied classical music and bassoon at the Dartington College of Arts and the Royal College of Music. She played in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and became a member of the Royal Academy of Music in London. Towards the end of the 1960s she lived in New York City for a year, during which time she became involved in music projects outside classical music.
When Cooper returned to the United Kingdom in 1971 she left classical music and became a part of the Canterbury scene. She joined the progressive rock band Comus, and although she only remained with the band for a year, it changed her whole approach to music. She added oboe and flute to her instrument repertoire, and started doing session work for other musicians, including Mike Oldfield on his album Hergest Ridge. A common misconception here is that she also performed on Oldfield's Tubular Bells, but it was her namesake Lindsay L. Cooper who played double bass. Then, during a theatre project, Cooper encountered Henry Cow, an avant-garde rock group that would later launch her musical career on the world stage.
[edit] Henry Cow
In late 1973 Henry Cow asked Cooper to join them as a replacement for Geoff Leigh (flute and reeds) who had recently left. Her classical training interested the group as they were continually looking for new musical directions. In spite of just having had all four wisdom teeth extracted, she immediately joined the band in the studio to record their second album Unrest. However, during their 1974 tour of England and Europe, the group reorganized themselves and asked Cooper to leave. But she still continued to guest on their albums and by mid-1975 she rejoined the group again and remained a permanent member until they split up in 1978.
Cooper became one of Henry Cow's principal composers and contributed a number of compositions to their repertoire, including half of their last album, Western Culture. The nature of the group enabled her to expand her musical horizons and experiment with new ideas. She took the bassoon into musical realms never dreamt of before. She also started playing soprano saxophone and piano during this period and began exploring improvisation techniques. Henry Cow toured Europe extensively, exposing Cooper to a variety of musical styles and musicians, all contributing to the development of her musical career.
[edit] Other bands and projects
Cooper's work with Henry Cow attracted the attention of musicians from around the world and she had no shortage of performance and recording opportunities. Late in 1977, during Henry Cow's last years, Cooper co-founded the Feminist Improvising Group with Sally Potter, Maggie Nichols, Georgie Born (from Henry Cow) and Irene Schweitzer. An international group of women improvisers, they toured Europe on and off between 1977 and 1982. She also kept a foot in the Canterbury scene by re-uniting briefly with Comus and playing on their second album, recording with Steve Hillage, and contributing to Hatfield and the North's The Rotters' Club album.
After Henry Cow, Cooper joined National Health, but left soon after when Dave Stewart departed to form his own group. In 1980 she recorded her first solo album Rags, a song-cycle about sweatshops in Victorian England, with Chris Cutler, Fred Frith and Georgie Born (all from Henry Cow) and Phil Minton and Sally Potter. In 1982 Cooper formed her own group, The Lindsay Cooper Film Music Orchestra, in which she wrote and performed film and TV scores, including the soundtrack to Sally Potter's debut feature film, The Gold Diggers, staring Julie Christie.
During the 1980s she toured the United States with David Thomas and played in various bands in England led by jazz composer Mike Westbrook. In 1983 Cooper collaborated with Chris Cutler and formed the English avant-garde rock group News from Babel, composing all the music for their two albums, Work Resumed on the Tower and Letters Home.
Cooper's best known work is her 1987 song-cycle Oh Moscow. It was another collaboration with Sally Potter, with Copper composing the music and Potter the song texts. It premiered at the Zurich Jazz Festival that year and was subsequently performed in Europe, North America and Moscow. The songs dealt with issues facing a divided Europe during the Cold War. Ironically, the Berlin Wall came down 39 days after the work was first performed. Oh Moscow was recorded in 1989 with Potter, Phil Minton, Hugh Hopper, Marilyn Mazur, Alfred Harth and Elvira Plenar at the Victoriaville Festival in Quebec.
In 1990 Cooper spent a few months in Australia where she gave solo performances on bassoon, saxophone and electronics. She also collaborated with Australian singer, writer and theatre director Robyn Archer, arranging and composing the music for Archer's play Cafe Fledermaus, and Sahara Dust, a large scale jazz vocal piece with lyrics by Archer. Sahara Dust was released on CD in 1993 with the voice of Phil Minton, and reflected on the 1990-91 Gulf War and its impact on the world at large.
Cooper released two collections of her contemporary dance pieces Schrodinger's Cat and An Angel on the Bridge in 1991 and performed her own composition "Concerto for Sopranino Saxophone and Strings" at the British Conservatory in London in 1992, a piece commissioned by the European Women's Orchestra. She also wrote and performed "Songs for Bassoon and Orchestra" with the Bologna Opera House Orchestra in Italy in 1992, and composed "Face in a Crowd" and "Can of Worms" for the San Francisco based Rova Saxophone Quartet.
A blow struck her career in 1991 when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. However, she did not disclose this fact to the musical community and continued performing right up until 1998 when the illness forced her to retire. In spite of this, Cooper still remains a highly respected and influential figure in the musical world. Her works are regularly performed and even taught throughout the world.
[edit] Discography
This is a selection of albums Lindsay Cooper has performed on, showing the year they were first released.
[edit] Bands and projects
- 1974 Mike Oldfield: Hergest Ridge (LP Virgin Records, UK)
- 1974 Egg: The Civil Surface (LP Caroline Records, UK))
- 1974 Henry Cow: Unrest (LP Virgin Records, UK)
- 1974 Comus: To Keep from Crying (LP Virgin Records, UK)
- 1975 Steve Hillage: Fish Rising (LP Virgin Records, UK)
- 1975 Hatfield and the North: The Rotters' Club (LP Virgin Records, UK)
- 1975 Slapp Happy/Henry Cow: Desperate Straights (LP Virgin Records, UK)
- 1975 Henry Cow/Slapp Happy: In Praise of Learning (LP Virgin Records, UK)
- 1976 Henry Cow: Henry Cow Concerts (2xLP Caroline Records, UK)
- 1978 Art Bears: Hopes and Fears (LP Recommended Records, UK)
- 1979 Henry Cow: Western Culture (LP Broadcast, UK)
- 1982 Mike Westbrook Orchestra: The Cortege (3xLP Original Records, UK)
- 1983 News from Babel: Work Resumed on the Tower (LP Recommended Records, UK)
- 1983 David Thomas and the Pedestrians: Winter Comes Home (LP Recommended Records, UK)
- 1983 David Thomas and the Pedestrians: Variations on a Theme (LP Rough Trade Records, UK)
- 1984 Lindsay Cooper, Maggie Nicols and Joëlle Léandre: Live at the Bastille (1982) (LP Recommended Records, UK)
- 1984 Catherine Jauniaux and Tim Hodgkinson: Fluvial (LP Woof Records, UK)
- 1985 David Thomas and the Pedestrians: More Places Forever (LP Rough Trade Records, UK)
- 1986 News from Babel: Letters Home (LP Recommended Records, UK)
- 1986 Dagmar Krause: Tank Battles: The Songs of Hanns Eisler (LP Island Records, UK)
- 1986 Dagmar Krause: Panzerschlacht: Die Lieder von Hanns Eisler (LP Island Records, UK)
- 1987 Mike Westbrook: Westbrook-Rossini (2xLP Hat Hut Records, Switzerland)
- 1988 Anthony Phillips and Harry Williamson: Tarka (CD Baillemont Records, France)
- 1993 David Motion and Sally Potter: Orlando – original soundtrack to the film Orlando by Sally Potter (CD Varese Sarabande, USA)
- 1994 Mike Westbrook Brass Band: Westbrook Rossini Zürich Live (2xCD Hat Hut Records, Switzerland)
- 1994 Trio Trabant a Roma: State of Volgograd (CD Free Music Production, Germany)
- 1994 Tim Hodgkinson: Each In Our Own Thoughts (Woof Records, UK)
- 1997 Lindsay Cooper and Charles Gray: Pia Mater (CD Resurgence, UK)
- 1998 Rova Saxophone Quartet: Bingo (CD Victo Records, Canada)
[edit] Solo
- 1981 Rags (LP Arc Records, UK)
- 1983 The Golddiggers – original soundtrack to the film The Gold Diggers by Sally Potter (LP Recommended Records, UK)
- 1986 Music for Other Occasions (LP No Man's Land, Germany)
- 1991 Oh Moscow (CD Victo Records, Canada)
- 1991 An Angel on the Bridge (CD Phonogram/Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia)
- 1991 Schroedinger's Cat (CD Line/Femme Music, Germany)
- 1993 Sahara Dust (CD Intakt Records, Switzerland)
- 1998 A View from the Bridge (2xCD Impetus Records, UK)
[edit] External links
- Lindsay Cooper biography. The Canterbury Website.
- Lindsay Cooper biography. Paris Transatlantic Magazine.
- Lindsay Cooper discography.
- Lindsay Cooper at All Music Guide.
| Persondata | |
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| NAME | Cooper, Lindsay |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | English musician, composer and activist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 3, 1951 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hornsey, North London, England |
| DATE OF DEATH | |
| PLACE OF DEATH | |
