Paul Cooper papers

Paul Cooper (1926-96), composer-in-residence and Lynette Autrey Professor of Music at Rice University, was internationally known as a composer, music critic, author and teacher. He earned degrees from the University of Southern California and studied at the Conservatoire Nationale and the Sorbonne in Paris, and made his professional debut in 1953 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He was a music critic in Los Angeles and Ann Arbor, MI and taught at the University of Michigan (1955-68) and the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati before joining the Rice faculty in 1974. Cooper held guest professorships in Stockholm and Copenhagen. He received Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellowships, grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Ford, Rockefeller and Rackham Foundations and the National Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and 25 consecutive ASCAP awards beginning in 1966. He served as cultural representative to Yugoslavia for the US State Department in 1965, and in 1976 began his involvement with the Music Teachers National Association. He served on the boards of Meet-the-Composer [Texas], Houston Composers Alliance, Voices of Change, Texas Composers Forum, and Phi Beta Kappa Alumni of Houston. Cooper was married to the former Christiane Ebert, a noted poet with whom he collaborated on oratorios, song cycles, instrumentals and chamber works. They have two children.