Notable Achievements

Professor of Music Michael Cooper presented a keynote lecture titled “The Cost of Being Fanny Mendelssohn” at each of two concerts offered as part of a Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel festival given by the Capitol Hill Chorale in Washington, D.C., under the direction of Frederick Binkholder of Georgetown University.

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Expertise

Music history, music and society in Europe and the United States, 1600-present; Special emphasis on the lives and music of African American composers, particularly Florence Price and Margaret Bonds. Also music and utopian movements in the U.S. in the 19th century; lives and works of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel. Historical performance, 1600-1900. 

John Michael Cooper joined the Sarofim School of Fine Arts faculty in 2006 as the Margarett Root Brown Chair in Fine Arts. Prior to his appointment at Southwestern he was on the faculty of the University of North Texas. His wide-ranging and prolific scholarly career includes, most recently, seventy world-premiere editions (in sixty volumes) of music by Florence B. Price published with G. Schirmer (New York) and ten world-premiere editions of music by Margaret Bonds published with Hildegard Publishing Company (Worcester, Mass.); he is the author of Margaret Bonds: “The Montgomery Variations” and Du Bois “Credo,” to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2022, and has given talks concerning Price and Bonds on both sides of the Atlantic. He is also currently at work on the second edition of his Historical Dictionary of Romantic Music (first edition Lanham: Scarecrow, 2013), and has published other books on Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy with Oxford University Press, Routledge Press, and the University of Rochester Press. He has published ten editions of Mendelssohn’s music with Bärenreiter-Verlag, and other editions with A-R Editions, Carus-Verlag, and Dr. Ludwig-Reichert Verlag, and other articles and book chapters on subjects ranging from Baroque performance practice and percussion to nineteenth-century Utopian communities and literature and aesthetics in the music of various nineteenth-century composers. He is an active blogger, and the catalog of previously unknown music that has been introduced into the modern musical landscape through his scholarship is extensive. 

But Dr. Cooper is first and foremost a teacher – one whose coverage ranges from classical antiquity to hip hop; one who emphasizes connections between music and other disciplines (especially literature and the social sciences); one whose students learn to understand, deeply, that musicians are members of society who use the art of music to communicate with other members of society about the issues, ideas, and themes that matter to them all: music, Dr. Cooper’s students come to understand, is both a lens into past worlds that might otherwise be hopeless unapproachable and an agent of change in its own time and beyond. His courses at SU range from the central sequence of music-history survey courses to a First-Year Seminar on Art and Revolution and other,  more advanced interdisciiplinary courses such as Movement and Migration in Musics of the Americas and, most recently, Music and Poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to #BlackLivesMatter

Dr. Cooper held a Fulbright Fellowship from the Germanistic Society of America. He was a recipient of the Paul Secord Spirit of Giving Award from the Alpha Upsilon chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Inc.  and was Scholar in Residence at the Colorado State University School of Music, Theatre and Dance in 2016. He is the recipient of two awards from The Florida State University College of Music: the 2007-2008 Warren D. Allen Faculty Citation for Excellence in Scholarship, and holder of the Curtis Mayes Orpheus Chair in Musicology. He received his Ph.D. from Duke University in 1994, his M.M. from Florida State University in 1988, and his B.M. from Florida State University in 1985.

  • John Michael Cooper joined the Sarofim School of Fine Arts faculty in 2006 as the Margarett Root Brown Chair in Fine Arts. Prior to his appointment at Southwestern he was on the faculty of the University of North Texas. His wide-ranging and prolific scholarly career includes, most recently, seventy world-premiere editions (in sixty volumes) of music by Florence B. Price published with G. Schirmer (New York) and ten world-premiere editions of music by Margaret Bonds published with Hildegard Publishing Company (Worcester, Mass.); he is the author of Margaret Bonds: “The Montgomery Variations” and Du Bois “Credo,” to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2022, and has given talks concerning Price and Bonds on both sides of the Atlantic. He is also currently at work on the second edition of his Historical Dictionary of Romantic Music (first edition Lanham: Scarecrow, 2013), and has published other books on Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy with Oxford University Press, Routledge Press, and the University of Rochester Press. He has published ten editions of Mendelssohn’s music with Bärenreiter-Verlag, and other editions with A-R Editions, Carus-Verlag, and Dr. Ludwig-Reichert Verlag, and other articles and book chapters on subjects ranging from Baroque performance practice and percussion to nineteenth-century Utopian communities and literature and aesthetics in the music of various nineteenth-century composers. He is an active blogger, and the catalog of previously unknown music that has been introduced into the modern musical landscape through his scholarship is extensive. 

    But Dr. Cooper is first and foremost a teacher – one whose coverage ranges from classical antiquity to hip hop; one who emphasizes connections between music and other disciplines (especially literature and the social sciences); one whose students learn to understand, deeply, that musicians are members of society who use the art of music to communicate with other members of society about the issues, ideas, and themes that matter to them all: music, Dr. Cooper’s students come to understand, is both a lens into past worlds that might otherwise be hopeless unapproachable and an agent of change in its own time and beyond. His courses at SU range from the central sequence of music-history survey courses to a First-Year Seminar on Art and Revolution and other,  more advanced interdisciiplinary courses such as Movement and Migration in Musics of the Americas and, most recently, Music and Poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to #BlackLivesMatter

    Dr. Cooper held a Fulbright Fellowship from the Germanistic Society of America. He was a recipient of the Paul Secord Spirit of Giving Award from the Alpha Upsilon chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha, Inc.  and was Scholar in Residence at the Colorado State University School of Music, Theatre and Dance in 2016. He is the recipient of two awards from The Florida State University College of Music: the 2007-2008 Warren D. Allen Faculty Citation for Excellence in Scholarship, and holder of the Curtis Mayes Orpheus Chair in Musicology. He received his Ph.D. from Duke University in 1994, his M.M. from Florida State University in 1988, and his B.M. from Florida State University in 1985.

  • Margaret Bonds, Florence Price, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Nineteenth-century utopian societies, politics and music, musical performance practice and aesthetics, musical biography and source-studies. 

  • BOOKS

    Historical Dictionary of Romantic Music, 2nd ed., revised and enlarged. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, [in progress].

    Margaret Bonds: ‘The Montgomery Variations” and Du Bois “Credo.” New Cambridge Music Handbooks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [at press].

    Historical Dictionary of Romantic Music. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, 2013. (Assisted by Randy Kinnett).

    Mendelssohn, Goethe, and the Walpurgis Night: The Heathen Muse in Western Europe, 1700-1850. Eastman Studies in Music. New York: University of Rochester Press, 2007. (Paperback edition, 2010.)

    Mendelssohn’s “Italian” Symphony. Oxford Studies in Musical Genesis and Structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

    The Mendelssohns: Their Music in History. Edited with Julie D. Prandi. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

    Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: A Guide to Research, with a Bibliographic Introduction to Research concerning Fanny Hensel. New York: Routledge, 2001. 2nd edition, revised and enlarged by Angela R. Mace, as Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: A Research and Information Guide, 2011.

     

    PUBLISHED EDITIONS

     

    • Margaret Bonds: I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free. Worcester, Mass.: Hildegard Publishing, [at press].
    • Margaret Bonds: We Shall Overcome. Worcester, Mass.: Hildegard Publishing, [at press].
    • Margaret A. Bonds: When the Dove Enters in (text by Langston Hughes). Worcester, Mass.: Hildegard Publishing, 2021.
    • Florence B. Price: Four Pieces for Piano Solo (“Levee at Noontime – Barcarolle,” “Little Miss Perky,” “Smile, Smile!,” “Fairy Fun”). New York: G. Schirmer, 2021.
    • Florence B. Price: Joy in June. New York: G. Schirmer, 2021.
    • Florence B. Price: Four Songs from “The Weary Blues.” (“My Dream,” “Songs to the Dark Virgin,” “Ardella,” and “Dream Ships.” New York: G. Schirmer, 2021.
    • Florence B. Price: Waltz of the Spring Maid. New York: G. Schirmer, 2021.
    • Margaret Bonds: Touch the Hem of His Garment, for soprano solo, SATB chorus, and piano. Worcester: Hildegard Publishing, 2021 [at press].
    • Margaret Bonds: No Man Has Seen His Face, for soprano or tenor solo, SATB chorus, and piano. Worcester: Hildegard Publishing, 2021 [at press].
    • Margaret Bonds: Two Works for Solo Pianos (Tangamerican and Fugal Dance). Worcester: Hildegard Publishing Company, 2021. [at press]
    • Florence B. Price: An Old Love Letter. New York: G. Schirmer, 2021.
    • Florence B. Price: Six Pieces for Piano Solo. New York: G. Schirmer, 2021.
    • Florence B. Price: Seven Descriptive Pieces for Piano Solo. New York: G. Schirmer, 2021.
    • Florence B. Price: Monologue for the Working Class. Text by Langston Hughes. New York: G. Schirmer, 2020.
    • Florence B. Price: Scherzo. New York: G. Schirmer, 2020.
    • Florence B. Price: Rowing: Little Concert Waltz. New York: G. Schirmer, 2020.
    • Margaret Bonds: The “Montgomery Variations” (1964), for Symphony Orchestra. Full score and orchestral parts. Worcester, Pennsylvania: Hildegard Publishing Company, 2020. [at press]
    • Margaret Bonds: Six Songs on Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay (“Women Have Loved Before as I Love Now,” “Hyacinth,” “Even in the Moment,” “Feast,” “I Know My Mind,” and “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed”). Worcester: Hildegard Publishing Company, 2020. [at press]
    • Margaret Bonds: Three Sacred Songs (“No Man Has Seen His Face,” “Touch the Hem of His Garment,” and “Faith in Thee”). Worcester: Hildegard Publishing Company, 2020. [at press]
    • Florence B. Price: Scenes in Tin Can Alley. New York: G. Schirmer, 2020. [at press]
    • Florence B. Price: Thumbnail Sketches of a Day in the Life of a Washerwoman. New York: G. Schirmer, 2020.
    • Margaret Bonds: Text by W.E.B. Du Bois. Full score and orchestral parts. Worcester: Hildegard Publishing Company, 2020 [at press].
    • Margaret Bonds: Text by W.E.B. Du Bois. Piano-vocal score. Worcester: Hildegard Publishing Company, 2020 [at press].
    • Florence B. Price: Song without Words in A Major (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Child Asleep (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Two Traditional Negro Spirituals (“I Am Bound for the Kingdom” and “I’m Workin’ on My Buildin’” (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: On a Summer’s Eve (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Barcarolle (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Ten Negro Spirituals for the Piano (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Three Miniature Portraits of Uncle Ned (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: His Dream (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Preludes (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: To a Brown Leaf (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Song without Words in G Major (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Tarantella (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Snapshots (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Impromptu (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: To a Certain Pair of Newlyweds (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Don’t You Tell Me No (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Until We Meet (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Village Scenes (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Waltzing on a Sunbeam (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Whim Wham (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Placid Lake (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Fantasie nègre No. 2 in G Minor (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020) (world-premiere recording by Lara Downes on Spotify)
    • Florence B. Price: Some o’ These Days. New York: G. Schirmer, 2020.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Lobgesang – eine Symphonie-Kantate nach Worten der Heiligen Schift, MWV A 18 / Op. 52. Urtext edition of full score. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2020.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Lobgesang – eine Symphonie-Kantate nach Worten der Heiligen Schift, MWV A 18 / Op. 52. Urtext edition of piano-vocal score. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2020.
    • Florence B. Price: Valsette Mignon (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: Fantasy No. 2 in F-sharp Minor for Violin and Piano (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020)
    • Florence B. Price: First Romance (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020) (world-première recording by Lara Downes on Spotify)
    • Florence B. Price: In Sentimental Mood (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020) (world-première recording by Lara Downes on Spotify)
    • Florence B. Price: Three Roses (To a Yellow Rose, To a White Rose, To a Red Rose) (New York: G. Schirmer, 2020) (world-première recording by Lara Downes on Spotify: To a Yellow Rose, To a White Rose Version B, To a Red Rose)
    • Florence B. Price: Cotton Dance (New York: G. Schirmer, 2019)
    • Florence B. Price: The Heart of a Woman (text by Georgia Douglas Johnson) (voice and piano) (New York: G. Schirmer, 2019)
    • Florence B. Price: String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor (1935) (New York: G. Schirmer, 2019)
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Psalm: Non nobis Domine / Nicht unserm Namen, Herr, MWV A 9 / Op. 31. Urtext edition of full score. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2017.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Psalm: Non nobis Domine / Nicht unserm Namen, Herr, MWV A 9 / Op. 31. Urtext edition of piano-vocal score. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2017.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Psalm 98. Urtext edition of full score. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2016.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Psalm 98. Urtext edition of piano-vocal score. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2016.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Psalm 42. Urtext edition of full score. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2014.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Psalm 42. Urtext edition of piano-vocal score. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2014.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Die erste Walpurgisnacht, Op. 60. Urtext edition of full score. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2010.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Die erste Walpurgisnacht, Op. 60. Urtext edition of piano-vocal score. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2010.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Die erste Walpurgisnacht, first complete version of 1832-33. Recent Researches in Music of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. Full score. Madison, Wisconsin: A-R Editions, 2008.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Die erste Walpurgisnacht, first complete version of 1832-33. Recent Researches in Music of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. Piano-vocal score. Madison, Wisconsin: A-R Editions, 2008.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Paulus / St. Paul, Op. 36. Urtext edition of full score. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2007.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Paulus / St. Paul, Op. 36. Urtext edition of piano-vocal score. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2007.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Psalms, Op. 78. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2006.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Three Choruses, Op. 69. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2006.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Symphony in A Major (“Italian”): First Edition of the Revised Version of 1833/1834. Wiesbaden: Ludwig-Reichert-Verlag, 1999.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Sinfonie A-dur op. 90, “Italienische”: Alle eigenhändigen Niederschriften im Faksimile. Facsimile edition, 2 vols. with commentary. Wiesbaden: Ludwig-Reichert-Verlag, 1997.
    • Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Tu es Petrus, Op. 111. Stuttgart: Carus-Verlag, 1996.

     

    PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS

    • “‘Inner Necessity’: Fabulation, Frame, and Musical Memory in Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang.” In Rethinking Mendelssohn, ed. Angela R. Mace Christian and Benedict Taylor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 60-90.
    • “People of Color Who Write Classical Music: Recovering ‘Lost’ Music by Black Composers as Resistance and Revolution.” Black History Bulletin 82, no. 1 (2019): 20-27.
    • “Faust’s Schubert: Schubert’s Faust.” In Music in Goethe’s “Faust” – Goethe’s “Faust” in Music, Lorraine Byrne Bodley, 101-116. Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 2017. 
    • “Escape to – and from – Utopia: Fourierist Philosophy and Musical Life in the Colony of La Réunion, Texas.” American Music 33 (2015): 141-75.
    • (with R. Larry Todd) “‘With True Esteem and Friendship’: The Correspondence of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Louis Spohr.” Journal of Musicological Research 29 (2010): 171-259.
    • “Knowing Mendelssohn: A Challenge from the Primary Sources.” Notes 61 (2004): 35-95.
    • “Of Red Roofs and Hunting Horns: Mendelssohn’s Song Aesthetic, with an Unpublished Cycle (1830).” Journal of Musicological Research 21 (2002): 277-317.
    • “The Realisation and Embellishment of Timpani Parts in German Baroque Music: The Schlagmanieren Revisited.” Early Music 27 (1999): 249-66.
    • “Felix Mendelssohn, Ferdinand David und Sebastian Bach: Mendelssohns Bach-Auffassung im Speigel der Wiederentdeckung der ‘Chaconne.’ ” Mendelssohn-Studien 10 (1997): 159-86.
    • “The Hero Transformed: The Relationship between Ein Heldenleben and Don Quixote Reconsidered.” Richard-Strauss-Blätter 30 (1993): 3-21.
    • “‘Aber eben dieser Zweifel’: A New Look at Mendelssohn’s ‘Italian’ Symphony.” Nineteenth-Century Music 15 (1992): 169-87
    • “Towards a Reconsideration of J. S. Bach’s Writing for the Timpani.” Percussive Notes 15 (1989): 44-50.
    • “Musical Form and Dialectic Thought in Brahms’s Schicksalslied.” Theoretically Speaking 4 (1987): 41-47.
    • “The Baroque Timpani: Some Observations on Performance Practice and the Present State of Research.” Percussive Notes 12 (1986): 39-50.
    • “Program and Form in Dvořák’s Othello.” Theoretically Speaking 3 (1986): 66-68.
    • “Richard Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder.” Theoretically Speaking 2 (1985): 39-50.

     

    OTHER PUBLICATIONS

     

    Film:

     

    • Songs in the Dark: Echoes of Bilitis. Director and producer. 24-minute documentary short submitted to international film festivals. (2015)

     

    • Bilitis, Revisited. Director and producer. 70-minute documentary of Southwestern University performances sponsored by Mellon Integrated Scholarly Community grant, 2009-2010.  (2015)

     

    Chapters in Books and Invited Articles:

    • “Kein Aufguss auf der Neunten: Felix Mendelssohns Symphonie-Kantate ‘Lobgesang’ in einer neuen Urtext-Edition.” [t]akte: Das Bärenreiter-Magazin, January 2020: 10.
    • “Mendelssohn und Berlioz: Eine verdeckte Verwandtschaft.” In Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Kompositorisches Wirken und künstlerisches Wesen, ed. Christian Martin Schmidt. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, [at press].
    • “‘Infelice / Ah, ritorna, età dell’ ore’ und ‘Infelice / Ah, ritorna, età felice,’” in Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Interpretationen seiner Werke, ed. Matthias Geuting and Michaela G. Grochulski (Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 2016), 2: 221-32.
    • Die erste Walpurgisnacht 60.” In Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Interpretationen seiner Werke, ed. Matthias Geuting and Michaela G. Grochulski (Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 2016), 2: 252-63.
    • “Music History as Sermon: Style, Form, and Narrative in Mendelssohn’s ‘Dürer Cantata.’” In Mendelssohn, the Organ, and the Music of the Past: Constructing Historical Legacies, ed. Jürgen Thym, 224-64. New York: University of Rochester Press, 2014.
    • “Mendelssohn and Berlioz: Selective Affinities.” In Mendelssohn Perspectives, ed. Angela R. Mace and Nicole Grimes. 113-43. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012.
    • “Mendelssohn’s Fugues for String Quartet (1821).”  Ad Parnassum 8/14 (Fall 2010): 1-33.
    • “Mendelssohn’s Valediction.” The Choral Journal 49/4 (April 2009): 50-59. 
    • “From Notation to Edition to Performance: Issues in Interpretation.” In Mendelssohn in Performance, ed. Siegwart Reichwald (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 171-88.
    • “‘For You See I Am the Eternal Objector’: On Performing Mendelssohn’s Music in Translation” In Mendelssohn in Performance, ed. Siegwart Reichwald (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 207-248.
    • “Impulse Bachs im Geiste der Gegenwart: Bemerkungen zu einigen wenig bekannten Sätzen zu Mendelssohns ” Paper presented at “… zu groß, zu unerreichbar …: Bach im Zeitalter des Romantismus, conference hosted by Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Sebastian-Bach-Haus, Mendelssohn-Haus, and Schumann-Haus, 11-13 November 2006.
    • “One Aria or Two? Mendelssohn, Metastasio, and Infelice.” Philomusica Online 4 (2004-2005). See http://philomusica.unipv.it/
    • “Mendelssohn Received.” In The Cambridge Companion to Mendelssohn, ed. Peter Mercer-Taylor, 233-50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

    ·       “‘… da ich dies Stück gern recht correct erscheinen sähe’:  Philological and Textual Issues in Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, Op. 26.” Philomusica Online 3 (2003-2004). See http://philomusica.unipv.it/

    • “Mendelssohn’s Two Infelice Arias: Problems of Sources and Musical Identity.” In The Mendelssohns: Their Music in History, 43-97. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
    • “The Prodigy’s Voice: Mendelssohn and His Clarinet Sonata.” The Clarinet 29/2 (2002): 70-77.
    • “Mendelssohn’s Works: Prolegomenon to a Comprehensive Inventory.” In The Mendelssohn Companion, ed. Douglass Seaton, 701-85. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001.
    • Foreword to first publication of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Three Marches for Harmonie-Musik, ed. Roger Garrett. Palm Beach, Fla.: Ballerbach Press, 1999.
    • “Words without Songs? Thoughts on Texts, Titles, and Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte.” In Musik als Text? Bericht über den internationalen Kongreß der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung, Freiburg im Breisgau 1993, ed. Hermann Danuser and Tobias Plebuch, ii: 341-46. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1999.
    • “A Glimpse into the Composer’s Workshop: The 1833 Revisions in Mendelssohn’s ‘Italian’Symphony.” In Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Symphonie A-dur op. 90: Alle eigenhändige Niederschriften in Faksimile: Partitur 1833. Wiesbaden: Ludwig-Reichert Verlag, 1997.
    • “A Glimpse into the Composer’s Workshop, Part II: Critical Observations concerning the 1834 Revision of Mendelssohn’s A-major Symphony.” In Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Symphonie A-dur op. 90: Alle eigenhändige Niederschriften in Faksimile: Partitur 1833. Wiesbaden: Ludwig-Reichert Verlag, 1997.
    • “Timpani and Percussion.” In A Performer’s Guide to Seventeenth-Century Music, ed. Stewart Carter, 133-52. New York: Schirmer Books, 1997. 2nd, 2011 (pp. 150-67).
    • “‘The Effect of the Whole Was Indescribably Beautiful’: Music, Literature, and Tableaux Vivants in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany.” In Literary and Musical Notes: A Festschrift for Wm. A. Little, ed. Geoffrey C. Orth, 9-26. Bern: Peter-Lang-Verlag, 1995).

     

  • CONFERENCES AND PERFORMANCES DIRECTED, CO-DIRECTED, OR SPONSORED

     Director: Art and Revolution. Brown Symposium XXXVIII (featuring presentations by Domnica Radulescu, Barbara M. Stafford, Reiland Rabaka, James von Geldern, Felicia Hardison Londré, and others). Southwestern University, 1-3 March 2017. (Symposium webpage) (Preview).

     Co-Director, with Katy Ross: Language and Revolution: How Words Change the World. Keynote Colloquium for Brown Symposium XXXVIII (featuring presentations by Flavia Company, David Harrison, and Farhana Qazi). Southwestern University, 4 November 2016. (Colloquium webpage)

     Director: Think – Converse – Act: The Salon and Its Histories. Brown Symposium XXXIII (featuring presentations by Faith E. Beasley, Linda Essig, Marjanne E. Goozé, Eleanor Heartney, Jonah Lehrer, Sarah Holmes Miller, Natalie Kay Moore, Greg Sandow, Vicky Unruh, and Robert N. Watson). Southwestern University, 23-25 February 2011. (See http://www.southwestern.edu/academics/brownsymposium/archives/xxxiii/)

     Director: Songs of Bilitis (reconstruction of historic 1901 for Claude Debussy’s monodrama 12 Chansons de Bilitis, with new enactment of 6 Epigraphes antiques and concert performance of 3 Chansons de Bilitis, with recitations by Kathleen Juhl and performances by Kiyoshi Tamagawa, Anthony Tobin, and chamber ensemble). Southwestern University, 12 February 2010 (see http://www.southwestern.edu/sarofim/bilitis/performances.html).

     Director: The Mysteries Revisited (performance of complete music by Claude Debussy on the subject of Pierre Louÿs’s Bilitis, featuring artistic installation by Victoria Star Varner and recitations by Kathleen Juhl, with performances by Kiyoshi Tamagawa, Anthony Tobin, and chamber ensemble). Southwestern University, 29 and 30 January 2010 (see http://www.southwestern.edu/sarofim/bilitis/performances.html).

     Organizer: posthumous premiere of original orchestral version of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s and Ignaz Moscheles’s Fantasy and Variations on the Gypsy March from Weber’s “Preziosa.” Jonathan Bellman and Kiyoshi Tamagawa, pianists, with the Austin Civic Orchestra, cond. Lois Ferrari. Southwestern University, 21 February 2009.

     Organizer (with Jason Hoogerhyde): Voices of Musical Creation (undergraduate conference in three sessions highlighting works by SU student composers and students in MUL classes, 6 April 2008.

     

    Director (with Mark McKnight): Legacies: Five Hundred Years of Printed Music (held at UNT, 25-28 October 2001)

     Director (with Timothy Jackson and Graham Phipps): The Music of Richard Strauss: A Symposium (held at UNT, 3-4 February 2001)

     

    Director (with Jesse Eschbach): University of North Texas College of Music Bach Symposium (held at UNT, 14-15 April 2000)

     Director: The Mendelssohns at the Millennium: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Fanny Hensel after 150 Years (held at Illinois Wesleyan University, 6-9 March 1997)

     Director: History, Music, and the Arts in Germany and Austria, 1815-1848 (held at Illinois Wesleyan University, 30-31 March 1996)

     

    CONSULTING

    •  Musicological consultant, ONEcomposer, Season 2 (Margaret Bonds) (organized by Stephen Spinelli and Tamara Acosta, with contributions by Karen Slack and Michelle Cann)
    • Member of Advisory Board, Central Texas Philharmonic
    • Member of Leadership Team, Black Classical Music Festival (to be held in Washington, D.C., 16 November 2021)
    • Member of editorial board for Member of editorial board for J. Peter Burkholder, Donald Jay Grout, and Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music, 10th ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2019)
    • Peer reviewer for National Endowment for the Humanities proposal (2019)
    • Peer reviewer for two proposals submitted to Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
      • “Facetten kompositorischer Reflexion. Die Widmungen an Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” (€94,150)
      • “Historisch-kritische Online-Edition der Korrespondenz von Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy” (first version: €1,081,160; revised version: €906,991; phase two: 722.192,19 EUR)
    • Peer reviewer for books published by:
      • Ashgate Publishing (4)
      • Boydell & Brewer (3)
      • Cambridge University Press (1)
      • Camden House (1)
      • Oxford University Press (8)
      • Routledge Publishing (2)
      • University of Rochester Press (4)
      • W. Norton (1)
    • Peer reviewer for articles and book chapters published by:
      • American Music
      • Ars Lyrica: Journal of the Lyrica Society for Word-Music Relations
      • Ashgate Publishing
      • Journal of the American Musicological Society (2)
      • Journal of Modern Jewish Studies
      • Journal of Musicology
      • Music & Letters (2)
      • Nineteenth-Century Music
      • Nineteenth-Century Music Review
      • The Musical Quarterly
      • W. Norton
    • Specialist Peer Review committee member, Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES), 2004 - 2006
    • Member of Musicological Team, The Online Chopin Variorum Edition, 2004.
    • Chief Musicological Consultant, The Mendelssohn Project, 2000-2004
    • Musical Consultant and Guest Lecturer for performance of original version (Urfassung) of Mendelssohn’s oratorio St. Paul given in Chemnitz (Germany), 8 October 1995. 
    • Museum Exhibit Coordinator, Bard College “Robert Schumann and His World” Festival, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, August 1994 (Exhibit shown in Lincoln Center, October 1994). 
  • REFEREED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

     

    • “Florence B. Price and the Poetics of African American Musical Identity.” Paper presented at national meeting of the American Musicological Society, Boston, Mass., 2 November 2019.
    • “Music and Cultural Transfer in the Utopian Community of La Réunion, Texas (1855-58), with a Little-Known Songbook.” Paper presented at national meeting of the American Musicological Society, 14 November 2015. (Expanded and adapted from presentation at AMS regional meeting, below.)

     

    • “Music and Cultural Transfer in the Fourierist Community of La Réunion, Texas (1855-58), with a Little-Known Songbook.” Paper given Southwest Chapter meeting of the American Musicological Society (Denton, Texas), 11 April 2015.

     

    • “Mendelssohn’s Große Festmusik zum Dürerfest (1828) and the Sacralization of German Musical History.” Paper given at Southwest Chapter meeting of the American Musicological Society, 5 October 2013, and for the Southwestern University German Club, 1 October 2013. (Adapted from invited paper given in Dublin; see below.)

     

    • “Faust’s Schubert: Schubert’s Faust.” Presentation given at international conference Music in Goethe’s “Faust”: Goethe’s “Faust” in Music, hosted by National University of Ireland, Maynooth, 20-22 April 2012. (Thoroughgoing revision of paper originally presented in 2007.)

     

    • “Toward a Structured Series of Written Assignments in the Undergraduate Music-History Curriculum.” Presentation given at Southwest Chapter meeting of the American Musicological Association in San Antonio, Texas, 10 October 2009.
    • “Mendelssohn and Berlioz: Selective Affinities.” Paper presented at Mendelssohn in the Long Nineteenth Century conference, hosted by Trinity College, Dublin, 15-18 July 2005.
    • (With Lester Brothers and Deanna Bush:) “Charting the Course: Intercultural Directions in the Gateway Introduction to Music at UNT.” Paper presented at International Conference of the College Music Society in Toronto, 1 November 2000.
    • “Metastasio Romanticized: Two Little-Known Concert Arias by Mendelssohn.” Paper presented at Southwest Chapter Meeting of American Musicological Society, 1 April 2000.
    • “Could Praetorius Count? A Look at Terpsichore (1612) in Context.” Paper presented at American Musicological Society Southwest Chapter meeting, 10 October 1998, and at American Musicological Society Midwest Chapter meeting, 1 April 1995.
    • “The Unknown Paul: New Light on Mendelssohn’s First Oratorio.” Paper presented at Midwest Chapter Meeting of American Musicological Society, Chicago, 4-5 October 1997.
    • “The Subject’s Tale: Italy, Italianisms, and Nineteenth-century Musical Semeiotics in the Revised Version of Mendelssohn’s A-major Symphony.” Paper presented at national meeting of American Musicological Society in Baltimore, 28 October-1 November 1996.
    • “Words without Songs? Of Texts, Titles, and Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte.” Paper presented at “Musik als Text” conference of Internationale Gesellschaft für Musikforschung, Freiburg im Breisgau, September 1993.
    • “Felix Mendelssohn’s Arrangement of the D-minor ‘Chaconne’: A Case Study in Nineteenth-century Bach Reception.” Paper presented at Southeast Chapter Meeting of the American Musicological Society, March 1992.
    • “The Heroic Musical Art of Playing the Timpani: J.E. Altenburg and the Realization of Baroque Timpani Parts.” Paper presented at Georgia State University and Southern Meeting of College Music Society, March 1989.

     

    INVITED CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

     

    • “Florence Price, Margaret Bonds, and the ‘Great White Space’ of Classical Music.” Virtual lecture for Music without Borders conference of New Horizons International Music Association, 10 April 2021.
    • “Mendelssohn’s English Countenance as Reflected in London Publications of His Vocal Chamber Music to ca. 1850.” Paper presented at symposium International Enthusiasms, Anglo-Saxon Attitudes: Conflict, Transfer and Assimilation in London’s Musical Life, c. 1800-1850 (King’s College, London) as part of the Music in London, 1800-1851 projected funded by the European Research Commission, 8-9 July 2016.

     

    • Mendelssohn contra Mendelssohn: The Pre-1848 British Editions of Felix Mendelssohn’s Songs, Duets, and Vocal Quartets.” Paper presented at UNT – A Symposium for the 75th Anniversary of the UNT Music Library, conference hosted by the University of North Texas, 22-23 April 2016.

     

    • “Mendelssohn und Berlioz: Eine verdeckte Verwandtschaft (?).” Paper presented at Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Kompositorisches Werk und künstlerisches Wirken, conference hosted by Leipzig Gewandhaus, 26-30 August 2009.
    • “‘Zwei Komponisten durch ein gemeinsames Selbst getrennt’: Das Mendelssohn-Bild der amerikanischen und der deutschen Musikwissenschaft im 20. ”  Paper presented at Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy: Zum 200. Geburtstag, symposium hosted by Hochschule für Musik und Theater Rostock, 30 May 2009.
    • “Dangerous Youth: Mendelssohn, Mozart, and the Myth of the Eternal Child.” Paper presented at Mendelssohn in Montana, conference hosted by Montana State University, 26-28 March 2009.
    • “Der Weg von Berlin nach Leipzig: Zur Entstehungs- und Publikationsgeschichte von Mendelssohns weltlicher Kantate Die erste Walpurgisnacht.” Paper presented at conference “Musik – Stadt: Traditionen und Perspektiven urbaner Musikkulturen” at the Musikwissenschaftliches Institut of the University of Leipzig, in association with the XIV. International Congress of the Gesellschaft für Musikforschung, 1 October 2008.
    • “Tolerieren – Akkzeptieren – Anerkennen: Die ‘Übersetzungen’ Goethes und Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdys als Beispiele des Akkulturazions- und Toleranzdiskurses.” Paper presented at Lebenswelten / Musikwelten: Die Rolle der Musik im jüdischen Akkulturationsprozess”conference in Hamburg jointly hosted by the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg, the Brahms-Institut an der Universität Lübeck, and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig, 8-11 November 2007.
    • “Impulse Bachs im Geiste der Gegenwart: Bemerkungen zu einigen wenig bekannten Sätzen zu Mendelssohns ” Paper presented at “… zu groß, zu unerreichbar …: Bach im Zeitalter des Romantismus, conference hosted by Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Sebastian-Bach-Haus, Mendelssohn-Haus, and Schumann-Haus, 11-13 November 2005.
    • “One Aria or Two? Mendelssohn, Metastasio, and Infelice.” Paper presented at Quarto Seminario di Filologia Musicale: Esperienze di Lavoro, sponsored by the Facoltà di Musicologia, Università di Pavia, 19-21 May 2004.
    • “Berlioz and Mendelssohn: Obscure(d) Affinities.” Paper presented at Berlioz in the Age of French Romanticism, held at the University of North Texas, 11-12 November 2003.
    • “Mendelssohn’s Viola Sonata (1824): A Contribution to the Early Compositional Reception of Beethoven’s Late Style.” Paper presented at UNT Theory/History/Ethnomusicology Lecture series, 26 April 2000.
    • “The Path of a Poor Sinner’s Song: From Hassler to Bach.” Paper presented at UNT Bach Festival, 15 April 2000.
    • “Strauss’s Tableaux: Poesie or Literaturmusik?” Paper presented at UNT Richard Strauss Symposium, 3-4 February 2000.
    • “The Living Work: Mendelssohn’s Handel, with Special Attention to the Organ Parts for Israel in Egypt.” Paper presented at meeting of Dallas Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, 21 September 1999.
    • “Of Red Roofs and Hunting Horns: Mendelssohn’s Lieder, with an Unpublished Song Cycle (1830).” Paper presented for lecture series of Division of Theory, History, and Ethnomusicology, The University of North Texas, 28 April 1999.
    • “The Well-Tempered Timpanist: A Neglected Member of the Eighteenth-century Continuo Group.” Paper presented at Georgia State University and Florida State University, March 1991.

     

    INVITED PUBLIC LECTURES AND PRESENTATIONS

     

    • “‘… and I must go farther’: The Credo of Margaret Bonds and W.E.B. Du Bois.” Lecture to be given at the Juilliard School, 16 November 2021.
    • “Disorderly Inspiration: Hector Berlioz’s Idée fixe, the Clash of Tradition and Modernity, and the Episode in the Life of an Artist.” Virtual doctoral seminar for Dr. Kevin Geraldi, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, 10 September 2021.
    • “Black Feminism, Margaret Bonds, and the Credo of W.E.B. Du Bois.” Virtual presentation for Research Series of Royal Irish Academy of Music (Dublin), 24 March 2021. Revised version given for Musicology lecture series of University of California, Irvine, 6 May 2021.
    • “Paying the Price: Race and Gender, Race and Gender, Imperatives and Opportunities for the Great White Spaces of Classical Music in the Year 2020.” Virtual masterclass for University of Memphis School of Music, 30 October 2020.
    • “The Music of Florence B. Price.” Virtual Workshop for New Horizons Band of Toronto, 15 October 2020.
    • (with pianist Lara Downes)“Nevertheless, She Persisted: The Homecoming of Florence Price.” Public presentation at New England Conservatory of Music, 1 November 2019.
    • “The Silence of Florence Price.” Public musicology lecture at Trinity University, 2 April 2019.
    • “Knowing Florence Price.” Presentation for Conversations on Our Scholarly and Creative Work series, coordinated by Julie Sievers, 18 April 2018.
    • “Discovering the 1834 Revision of Mendelssohn’s ‘Italian’ Symphony.” Guest lecture for Austin Civic Orchestra performance, 4 February 2017.
    • Urtext as Empowerment: From Notation to Edition to Performance.” Guest lecture presented at Colorado State University, 4 April 2016.
    • “Tolerance, Acceptance, and Recognition: Goethe’s and Mendelssohn’s ‘Translations’ and the Discourse of Assimilation in the Early Nineteenth Century.” Paper presented for Music Theory and History Colloquium, University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, 27 April 2012.
    • “Music History as Sermon: Style, Form, and Narrative in Mendelssohn’s ‘Durer Cantata’ (1828).” Paper presented for Guest Lecture Series of Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin, 18 April 2012.
    • “‘Childhood Recaptured at Will’: Some Thoughts on Mendelssohn, Mozart, and Musical Genius.” President’s Fine Arts Series lecture, Montana State University, 25 March 2009.
    • Pre-concert lecture for world premiere of orchestral version of Fantasy and Variations on the Gypsy March from Weber’s “Preziosa” by Jonathan Bellman, Kiyoshi Tamagawa, and the Austin Civic Orchestra (cond. Lois Ferrari), 21 March 2009.
    • Pre-concert lecture for performance of Mendelssohn’s Paul by Chorus Austin (cond. Kenny Sheppard), 29 March 2008.
    • “Mendelssohn and the Revival of Bach’s Violin Sonatas and Partitas, BWV 1001 – 1006.” Public lecture presented at Georgetown Festival of the Arts, 6 June 2008.
    • “Faust’s Schubert – Schubert’s Faust.” Public lecture presented at Georgetown Festival of the Arts, 6 June 2007 and at Florida State University, 9 October 2007.
    • Pre-concert lecture for Georgetown Symphony Society, 16 September 2007.
    • Pre-concert lecture for Georgetown Symphony Society, 6 May 2007.
    • Pre-concert lecture for performance of revised version of Mendelssohn’s A-major (“Italian”) Symphony by Southwestern University Symphony Orchestra (cond. Lois Ferrari), 18 November 2006.
    • Pre-concert lecture for performance of Mendelssohn’s Three Motets, Op. 69 by Austin Vocal Arts Ensemble (cond. Kenny Sheppard), 28 October 2006.
    • Pre-concert lecture for performance by Van Cliburn International Piano Competition finalist Roberto Plano, Georgetown Symphony Society, 22 October 2006.
    • “Performance Preludes”: pre-concert lectures for Dallas Symphony Orchestra, 30 October – 2 November 2003.
    • “Goethe’s Mendelssohn, Mendelssohn’s Goethe.” Paper presented at meeting of the Dallas Goethe Society, 11 April 2003.
    • “‘Ever New’: Discoveries and Findings in Recent Research Concerning Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy.” Paper given at the Juilliard School, 1 February 2002.
    • “The Art of Mendelssohnian Song: A Reappraisal of the Songs of Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” (paper presented at reception for Claves Records in residence of Swiss Ambassador to The Netherlands, The Hague, 16 September 1999).
    • “New Mendelssohn Discoveries?” (public lecture sponsored by Claves Records in Thun, Switzerland, 3 June 1999).

In the News

  • Michael Cooper Resurrects the Lost Works of Groundbreaking Black Composers Florence Price and Margaret Bonds

    Long marginalized by racial prejudice, the accomplishments of these pioneering American masters can now be recognized and celebrated for their importance to 20th-century classical music.

  • Of Notes and Notations

    Southwestern music literature major Katiebeth Brandt ’19 helps resurrect the long-archived manuscripts of composer Florence B. Price.

  • Rediscovering a 20th-Century Musical Master

    Professor of Music and Margarett Root Brown Chair in Fine Arts Michael Cooper uncovers and edits unpublished works by African-American composer Florence B. Price.