Clare Cooper

“the kind of thrill-seeker the music world usually loses to the electric guitar” – TIME OUT CHICAGO.

Cooper is a designer, harpist, organiser, teacher and mum. She’s ferocious with strings and sticks, her sound inspired by synthesizers and broken boom boxes. She plays the chinese guzheng and pedal harp – more often than not with drumsticks and violin bows – snapping, crackling, popping and stabbing. Her investigations into context and how it can energise a performance have led her to map spaces and construct situations.

Her desire to engage collectives and audiences in experiments of contemporary sound, composition and performance is evidenced by her work as founder of the NOW now festival and concert series (est. Sydney 2001), Splinter Orchestra Sydney and Splitter Orchester Berlin.

Over the past 15 years Cooper has performed in 17 countries both as a soloist and interdisciplinary collaborator. She recently exhibited a solo show of graphic score’s at Auckland’s Audio Foundation, her compositions have been featured on Australia’s ABC, Germany’s SWR and UK’s BBC and have been published by the Australian Music Centre, Mikroton (Russia), Splitrec (Australia) and High Zero (USA). Based in Berlin from 2007, Cooper co-founded the Splitter Orchester and Hammeriver ensembles and curated events for Ausland and Radialsystem V. In 2013 Cooper relocated to Sydney with her equally noisy daughter.

Solo performance works for harp and/or guzheng, sound portrait films, graphic scores
Germ Studies – electro-acoustic duo with Chris Abrahams (of The Necks) on Japanese DX7 synthesiser and Cooper on ancient Chinese guzheng.
Nevers – acoustic-electro-acoustic duo with French instrument builder and composer Jean-Philippe Gross
Splinter Orchestra – Founder and member of Sydney-based large ensemble working with improvisation and trigger structures that embrace collective authorship
Splitter Orchester – Founder and member of Berlin-based large ensemble http://www.berlinsplitter.org/
Hammeriver – ensemble exploring the works of Alice Turiyasangitananda Coltrane
X & Influence series – fluid ensemble situation specific works
the NOW now festival – founder, co-director 2001-2007 and ongoing contributor
Smack/Bang Festival of live soundtracks

Website: http://gutstring.net

Currently based: Sydney, NSW

Photo:  K. Normoyle 2014