MUSIC

ARTS Coop conjures Mozart’s darkness with the VSO

by Steve Newton

As a concert pianist, Vancouver’s Jane Coop has performed at some of the most eminent venues in the world. She’s played at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Alice Tully Hall in New York City, the Beijing Concert Hall, and the Salle Gaveau in Paris.

But as Coop explains from her home near Fraser Street and 13th Avenue, the venue that stands out the most in her memory is the Bolshoi Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia, where she performed a program of works by Scarlatti, Beethoven, Fauré, Ravel, and Chopin in 1987.

“I suppose it’s not a very good thing to talk about today,” Coop says, referring to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, “but...it was at the big main concert hall and it was a solo recital for me, and just everything lined up perfectly for that concert. I was super well-prepared because I was on a tour, and the piano was fantastic, the hall was full, and the audience was so quiet and so appreciative that everything was just kind of perfect. I’ll never forget it.”

Coop’s journey to international piano star started when she was just a kid in Calgary. Her parents were not musicians—her dad messed around on the piano, played a little by ear—but they were music lovers. The family inherited a decent upright piano early on, and she had an older sister who started lessons when she was about six. It wasn’t long before Coop herself was drawn to the keys.

“My parents used to take us to symphony concerts,” she recalls, “and I remember hearing Van Cliburn when I was very, very young, and meeting him afterwards— my teacher took me backstage. And I liked [Sviatoslav] Richter a lot, and let’s see, who else… ? Well, the usual: [Arthur] Rubinstein, [Vladimir] Horowitz. And I ended up hearing those people live later in Toronto and Washington, D.C., so it was great.”

Coop was fortunate enough to have her musical career guided by some illustrious pianists. When she was 18 and attending the University of Toronto, she studied with Anton Kuerti, then followed that up with more training under Leon Fleisher.

“They had pretty different physical approaches to the piano,” she notes, “technical approaches, but they were definitely compatible about interpretation and just the general understanding of music.”

Teaching is something that is near and dear to Coop’s heart. For more than three decades, she held the title of professor of piano and chamber music at the UBC School of Music.

“It was a fantastic job,” she raves, looking back. “I put my whole self into it for 33 years, and I didn’t regret a single moment.”

“I’m not teaching now, though,” she adds, “because I decided to put my energy into my own playing—not that I wasn’t doing that all the way along. But I just felt I really needed a little bit of time and space, whereas when I was teaching fulltime and performing full-time, I really had no time for anything. So now I’m just practising my own things and occasionally I give a master class or somebody drops by and wants to play something for me. That’s great too.”

One of the things that keeps the Order of Canada recipient occupied these days is recording albums for her own Skylark Music label. She’s got 17 releases out so far, including two volumes of The Romantic Piano, collections of famous shorter pieces from the 19th century, which she says have sold very well. Her latest album on Skylark, Three Keyboard Masters, sees her performing works by Beethoven, Rachmaninoff, and Bach, but she laughs when asked if those are her three favourite composers.

“No, no, no. You know, people always ask me, ‘Who is your favourite composer?’ and I have to say I’m happy with whatever I’m playing at the time. I suppose Beethoven and Mozart and Haydn are three of my favourites. Rachmaninoff I love; Rachmaninoff is a pianist’s pianist, and pianist’s composer, especially for the piano—very difficult and challenging but wonderful. And then I love the French repertoire, too. So I just cannot make a decision as to who stands out.”

Speaking of Mozart, he’ll be the composer of note when Coop joins the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra for a performance of his Piano Concerto No. 24. (The program will also include Schumann’s Symphony No. 4 and the premiere of a new work from Canadian composer Ian Cusson, commissioned by the VSO, with mezzo-soprano Krisztina Szabó.)

“Mozart only wrote two piano concertos in minor keys,” notes Coop, “and usually minor keys are profoundly different from major; they tend to be more tragic. I mean it is in C minor, which is a dark key. But it’s a wonderful piece. It’s got everything in it. It’s got excitement, it’s got darkness, it’s got some tragic ideas, and it’s got some lightness in it too.”

Coop has performed with the VSO many times before—she describes it as “a very, very fine orchestra”—but this will be her first collaboration with musical director Otto Tausk at the conductor’s podium.

“I’m really looking forward to it,” she says, “because I’ve been to concerts with the VSO under him and I’ve been really pleased with his conducting. I’m very excited to be working with him.” g

Vancouver’s Jane Coop was taught by such stellar pianists as Anton Kuerti and Leon Fleisher before she embarked on a 33-year teaching career of her own at the UBC School of Music.

EXHIBITION RUNS April 9th – April 29th, 2022

People always ask me, ‘Who is your favourite composer?’

– Jane Coop

Jane Coop performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra on April 8 and 9.