About

I am a composer and writer.

My compositional practice takes many forms, from solo repertoire to performance-installations, large-scale choral works to electroacoustic pieces. Broadly, I’m interested in aural limits, those that might be found both within and between so-called listening and hearing, language and sense, interiority and exteriority, or real and imagined sounds. As such, my work is usually disquiet and unsettled in character, often comprising heartbeats, field recordings, detuned guitars, poetry, autotune, and fragmented, plaintive melodies.

I have worked with artists including Apartment House, Marsyas Trio, Octandre Ensemble, Terra Invisus, Jack Adler-McKean, Ryoko Akama, Roxanna Albayati, Lotte Betts-Dean, Kate Ledger, Neil Luck, Heather Roche, Sockethead, and Kathryn Williams. My compositional work has been programmed by a wide range of art and music organisations including ame, BBC Radio 3, East Street Arts, IKLECTIK, Left Bank, Light Night Leeds, University of Leeds International Concert Series, Trinity Laban (UK), CAMP (France), Darmstadt Summer Courses, Die Hochschule für Musik Freiberg, Hošek Contemporary (Germany), rainy days festival (Luxembourg), TU Dublin Conservatoire (Ireland), AżTak Festival (Poland), and mise-en place (New York, USA).

My writings are generally concerned with contemporary music, covering issues such as gender, musical bodies, listening, and homelessness, and composers such as Jennifer Walshe, Beat Furrer, and members of the Wandelweiser collective. These texts have been published in wide variety of journals, academic and otherwise, and appear in both English and German. I guest edited a special issue of Tempo published in January 2024 about composer Beat Furrer.

I hold a PhD in Music Composition and Aesthetics from the University of Leeds where I was supervised by Scott McLaughlin and Martin Iddon. This research was fully funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council through the White Rose College of Arts and Humanities. I passed my viva with editorial corrections and my thesis received a commendation for Research Excellence from the Leeds Doctoral College.

Testimonials

‘A bit dreary but quite nice’ — Anton Lukoszevieze

‘You’ve done something interesting for once’ — Anton Lukoszevieze

‘Heaven’s sake, Ed! Where’s your humanity?’ — Mira Benjamin

‘What the fuck does that mean?’ — Mic Spencer

‘You only write music like that because you don’t understand harmony’ — Tom Wright

‘Who is Ed Cooper?’ — member of the Wandelweiser collective

‘a very wet energy’ — Max Erwin

Jürg Frey once touched my arm.

‘Clumsy and unclear.’ — Martin Iddon