Ouachita Stories

Ouachita Baptist University’s School of Fine Arts will host Dr. Andrew Cooperstock in a piano recital at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 24, in Mabee Fine Arts Center’s McBeth Recital Hall. The recital and following reception are open to the public and admission is free. Cooperstock will also lead a master class for piano majors at 3 p.m.

Cooperstock is an award-winning pianist who has played throughout six continents and most of the U.S. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School and the Cincinnati and Peabody Conservatories.

“He is a professional and plays with a depth of musicality and solid technique which should inspire our students to be better performers themselves,” said Dr. Ouida Keck, OBU’s Addie Mae Maddox Professor of Music and coordinator of keyboard studies.

“He is very personable and his interpretations of music are extremely unique and creative,” Keck added. “His performances are based on a thorough knowledge of stylistic characteristics of the periods of music, and they are filled with unexpected surprises in interpretation.”

Cooperstock will perform works by his two favorite composers, Ludwig van Beethoven and Leonard Bernstein, in addition to shorter works.

“Beethoven's ‘Appassionata’ Sonata, Opus 57, is one of his most popular, and the Bernstein sonata is rarely played,” Cooperstock said. “I'll end the program with Aaron Copland's ‘El Salon Mexico,’ transcribed from the orchestral version by Bernstein, who was Copland's protégé. That piece features many nostalgic songs and dances from Mexico City and is exciting and popular.”

Cooperstock said he knew he wanted to be a university teacher and performer from a young age and began playing the piano at age eight. His first teaching position was at Southern Arkansas University, where he worked until 1990. He is currently a senior member of the keyboard faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder and chair of the piano department at Rocky Ridge Music Center.

“I enjoy the variety that a music career offers; no two days are the same,” Cooperstock said. “I'm able to teach university and pre-college students, perform solo and chamber music and an occasional concerto with orchestra. I get to travel around the country as well as overseas. Earlier this year, for example, I performed in Africa and Hong Kong, and next year I'll go back to South America.

“I've had exciting opportunities to teach, to travel, to perform and to make recordings, but all those varied activities involve thinking about and making music, which is endlessly fascinating,” Cooperstock added. “I love learning new works and re-thinking old friends. This is a wonderful profession.”

For more information, contact Dr. Ouida Keck at [email protected] or (870) 245-5352.

By Jordan Campbell