Professor of Music Michael Cooper presented the keynote lecture at the inaugural concert of the 2024 Corcoran Music Festival, hosted by George Washington University. The centerpiece of the concert was the previously unheard “Five Spiritual Songs in High and Low Keys” of Margaret Bonds, which Cooper published in August 2024 ([Ann Arbor]: Videmus).

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published “Two Moon Songs for Women’s Chorus and Piano” by Florence B. Price (Fayetteville, AR: ClarNan). The volume comprises two songs – “The Moon Bridge” by Mary Rolofson Gamble and “The New Moon” by Liza Lee Follett – that may be described as loving maternal musical reflections on the magic of moonlight in a young daughter’s imagination. Price published both works separately in 1930, “The New Moon” with a dedication to her friend Estella Bonds (mother of Margaret Bonds), but those editions are long out of print. Cooper’s edition hopes to help them find a new place in modern musical life.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper published the first edition of Florence B. Price’s three-movement trio titled Moods for flute, clarinet, and piano. A number of fragmentary manuscripts for this important late work – a series of “moodscapes” that reflect the compositional and stylistic diversity Price had achieved by the mid-1940s – have long been known, but they did not permit reconstruction of the complete work. Cooper’s edition is based on two previously unknown autographs that were found in an apartment in Chicago and donated to the University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville, in 2023.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper’s work in editing and publishing previously obscure music by Florence Price and Margaret Bonds was the subject of an interview article published in the August 2024 issue of American Music Teacher. The article can be read here.

Professor of Music Michael Cooper gave an invited presentation for the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library’s Summer Educator Institute, “It’s Tricky: American Music and Culture.” Titled “Teaching American Classical Music in Color: Stories, Journeys, and Portraits Old, New, and Yet to Come,” Cooper’s presentation was about the ethical and moral imperative of challenging both the perception of a Black/White color line in classical music and the de facto creation of said color line via endless reiterations of canonical compositions by mostly-long-dead-canonical composers, most of whom are European and/or male, and about ways in which today’s educators can liberate themselves from the fetters of canonical domination.