Imogen Cooper

British classical pianist.

Recognised worldwide for her virtuosity and poetic poise, Imogen Cooper has established a reputation as one of the finest interpreters of the classical repertoire. She has appeared with the New York Philharmonic under Sir Colin Davis and Wiener Philharmoniker under Sir Simon Rattle, as well as with the Royal Concertgebouw, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Budapest Festival, and NHK Symphony orchestras. She has played with all the major British orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding and Philharmonia Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach, and given solo recitals in New York, Tokyo, Paris, Vienna, Prague, and London. A committed chamber musician, she has enjoyed long collaborations with the baritone Wolfgang Holzmair and cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton. She has recorded Concertos by Mozart with the Northern Sinfonia, a Schubert cycle released under the title Schubert Live, and three CDs for Wigmore Hall Live.
Imogen Cooper was appointed CBE in the Queen’s New Year Honours List in 2007, and the following year received the Instrumentalist Award of the Royal Philharmonic Society. She is an Honorary Doctor of Music at the University of Exeter and an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music. She was the Humanitas Visiting Professor in Classical Music and Music Education at the University of Oxford for 2012 / 13.

Cooper was born on August 28, 1949, in London. Her father, Martin Cooper, was a musicologist. She studied piano in London with Kathleen Long. Cooper's training had both French and classic Austrian elements: she enrolled as a preteen at the Paris Conservatory for studies with Jacques Février and Yvonne Lefébure, taking the school's coveted First Prize in piano. Cooper went on to Vienna for studies with the great Classical-period specialists Alfred Brendel, Paul Badura-Skoda, and Jörg Demus. Her London career was launched in 1969 with the Mozart Memorial Prize, and she has gone on to a schedule of international performances that have included multiple appearances with the London Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Boston Symphony, among others; in Boston, she was immediately invited for a return visit by conductor Seiji Ozawa. Cooper has been active as an accompanist, most often to baritone Wolfgang Holzmair. She has played chamber music with the Belcea Quartet, among others. Her repertory includes all five of Beethoven's piano concertos and most of Mozart's mature concertos; she has also often played the piano concertos of Chopin, Piano Concerto in G major of Ravel, the Piano Concerto in A major Op. 54, of Schumann, and the Piano Concerto No. 3 of Bartók. Cooper has also given the premieres of several significant contemporary works, including Thomas Adès's Traced Overhead (1996) and Deirdre Gribbin's Decorated Skin (2003).

As a recording artist, she has been associated mostly with the Philips, Avie, and, most recently, Chandos labels; on Chandos, she issued the album Iberia y Francia in 2019.