Rachel Cooper – Artist Bio Case Study Assignment Help
New Jersey-born and England-raised, performing artist Rachel Cooper has been rocking continents since she first learned to play. Her talents cover wind, brass and percussion instruments, with specialties in piano, saxophone and clarinet.
Having worked in music professionally for the past 10 years, Cooper has performed with groups like the Southampton University Sinfonietta Orchestra as principal clarinetist, the Southampton University Jazz orchestra as principal alto sax, and the Bournemouth University Musical Theatre. Most recently, she set sail touring the world with P & O and Princess cruise lines rocking the night away with their onboard jazz bands. Over the years, Cooper has learned that music is where her passions lie, and she has since returned to school to enhance her knowledge and further broaden her horizons.
Since enrolling in higher education, Cooper has earned a BA in Music, specializing in the clarinet, and an Elementary Piano Pedagogy, both with first-class honours. Hungry for more, she is now working towards her Masters in clarinet performance at the University of Victoria.
Under the guidance of her mentors Ian Peters and Connie Gitlin, she has been introduced to Klezmer, a musical tradition passed down by the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. Encompassing ritual melodies and dance tunes that cherish improvisation, Klezmer is an art form that celebrates connection. For Cooper, these songs and folk tunes provide a greater range for creativity and expression that unites her with something ancient and beautiful, and has helped her reconnect with her own Jewish heritage. However, music affords her more than a means of connecting with the past – she knows the clarinet is her future too.
With her Bachelors in Education, Cooper has opportunities to expand her career into other fields, but continues to pursue music because, for her, it is so much more than a job. The instrument is a means of talking, a way to share a wordless sense of oneself to create an unspoken community. Far from being about capturing the limelight, she finds it is about the dynamic connection music has with those with whom she is playing, and those who are listening. This is what drives her.
Cooper is continuing to expand into bold new directions and has set her sights on working with the Victoria Symphony Orchestra. She intends to continue trail blazing with her folk style clarinet melodies in an endeavour to share her music with the world.