SOUTHWEST HARBOR — The Cooper siblings — violinist Thomas and soprano Sarah Joyce — bring classical music to the Wendell Gilley Museum for a special concert in the Main Gallery on Friday, June 24 at 7 p.m. Surrounded by sculptures by Wendell Gilley and Hank Tyler, photos by David Speiser and original paintings by David Sibley, they will perform excerpts from Louis Beydts’ “Songs for the Birds” as part of an extensive repertoire. No registration fee, but reservations are required at http://www.wendedllgilleymuseum.org/events. The concert will also be broadcast live.
They will be joined by three members of the Fermata Chamber Soloists, a Boston-based nonprofit co-founded by Mr. Cooper that aims to change the culture of classical music with experiential, community-driven events that are fun. , intense and informal. while maintaining the highest artistic level. In addition to Mr. Cooper, they include: cellist Alex Fowler; violist Daniel Orsen; and violinist Jessica Tsang.
Ms Cooper has been hailed for her “meltingly beautiful” soprano by Opera News. Based in Boston, she performs across the United States. More recently, she has performed with Syracuse Opera as Clorinda in Rossini’s La Cenerentola and with Tri-Cities Opera as Sally in Joe Illick’s new opera Stone Soup. This fall, she will appear with Opera Ithaca as Anna in a film version of Verdi’s Nabucco and as Little Zegner’s daughter in Missy Mazzoli’s Proving Up. She is also set to perform with the Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra in a performance of Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915.
Mr. Cooper has established himself as one of the most dynamic young musicians and leaders of his generation. A three-time winner of the New England Conservatory’s Entrepreneurial Musicianship Award, he has been hailed as a “in your footsteps stunner” as a violinist whose playing is “delightfully fiery”. [with a] your rich. As an orchestral player, Cooper is concertmaster of Harvard’s Du Bois Orchestra, a group dedicated to performing the works of historically marginalized composers. Additionally, he has performed with the Boston Philharmonic, the Palaver Strings of Portland, and the Cape Cod Chamber Orchestra. And as a soloist, he has performed with American orchestras, including the Colorado College Festival Orchestra, the Coeur D’Alene Symphony Orchestra, the Credo Baroque Orchestra, the Harvard Du Bois Orchestra and the Middlesex Chamber Orchestra, among others. .
Mr. Fowler, cellist, has performed with the Community Performances and Partnerships program as a Music Storytelling Fellow and as a chamber musician with the Boston Symphony Orchestra Prelude Concerts. He is the recipient of the 2019 John Cage Award for Contemporary Performance and the 2020 Spark Award. He currently performs with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and as principal cellist with the DuBois Orchestra.
Mr. Orsen is a violist with a keen interest in culture and intellectual history, currently manifesting himself in ‘Wagner’s Nightmare’ – a year-long exploration of Richard Wagner that will result in an album of music ‘that Wagner would love not”, says Mr. Orsen. “Wagner’s Nightmare” is Daniel’s second collaboration with pianist Pierre-Nicolas Colombat, following their first recording of Schubert’s Sonata for Arpeggione. He founded and directed Jamaica Plain Chamber Music for two years, and performs regularly at chamber festivals such as Krzyzowa Music, Taos, Ravinia and Verbier. He has performed alongside such luminaries as Itzhak Perlman, Eckart Runge and the Jasper String Quartet. As a soloist, he has performed with the Pittsburgh Civic Orchestra and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble.
Ms. Tsang is a Chinese-Canadian violinist born in Hong Kong and developed a passion for classical music growing up in Toronto. She performs regularly as a soloist, orchestra player and chamber musician in Italy, China, Canada and the United States. She is the founding performer of a social platform for musicians called Sparkgig.
