Jessica Cooper, soprano

Jessica Cooper is a San Diego native who holds her Master's degrees in Opera and Voice Performance from the New England Conservatory, where she was graduated with honors in performance and academic distinction.   She was warmly heralded as "a welcome addition to Boston's top rank of Handel sopranos" by Boston Globe critic Richard Dyer in the October 2001 review of the Boston Cecilia's performance of "Samson." Of her most recent performance of Mozart's "Davidde Penitente," and "Coronation Mass," Dyer wrote, "In both works, Jessica Cooper was outstanding for beauty of tone, technical accomplishment and musical intelligence." The Boston Herald wrote, "Cooper's warm attractive, sizeable voice nailed the fiendishly difficult celebratory coloratura."   She was also acclaimed in the Boston Globe for her performance of John Harbison's Simple Daylight in Jordan Hall in the New England Conservatory's Boston Composers Series in 2000. "Jessica Cooper sang with beautiful tone, and backed up emotional intensity with technical security."

Ms. Cooper was a fellow in the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, and has appeared with the La Jolla Symphony, Boston Civic Symphony Orchestra, the Newton, Wellesley, and Nashua Symphonies, New England Conservatory Honors Orchestra, San Diego State University Symphony, and in recital in the Stockbridge Chamber Concert series, Emmanuel Concert series, at Sapporo City Hall, and the San Diego Athenaeum. Most recently, Jessica was a guest artist on WGBH, "Classics in the Morning," where she presented a program of "Spanish Songs and Tangos," featuring the works of Astor Piazzolla, and other popular Spanish composers. Ms. Cooper was the New England region winner of the national NATSAA competition in 2002 and was also heard as a finalist in the New England Metropolitan Opera regional auditions in 2002 and 2003. She was the winner of the New England Conservatory Concerto. She performed the role of Musetta in Chorus Pro Musica's concert version of "La Boheme," Tytania in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream with the New England Conservatory in January 1999 and Lucia in the NEC 2000 production of Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, both directed by John Moriarty. Other roles in her repertoire include Queen of the Night (The Magic Flute), Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare), and Zerbinetta (Ariadne auf Naxos). Jessica is the soprano soloist at All Saints Parish in Brookline.