Musicologist
Professor emeritus of Music
John Michael Cooper
Helping to make unheard music part of our world
The Basics
Phone 940-595-1809 (c)
Email cooperm@southwestern.edu
Website https://cooperm55.wixsite.com/jmc3
Address Southwestern University
Music Department, P.O. Box 770
Georgetown, TX 78626
CONTACT ME
ABOUT ME
I'm a musician. I'm a teacher. I'm a scholar. I have a passion for social justice. I believe that the most important thing we can do -- for ourselves, our understanding of who we are, our history, our future -- is to learn music and understand how it serves as a lens into the world that produces it and a lens into who we are. Music is the key to understanding ourselves in all the diverse beauty and complexity of the human condition. And it is the key to making our world a better world.
The most important thing, though? That is to learn the music that we do not already know -- the musical voices that others are not already telling us to listen to, the voices and works that have been erased from our collective history.
That's why I edit music -- why in my teaching, my scholarship, and most of what I do I emphasize composers and works that have been lost or neglected, works that are forgotten, composers we need to know. I access manuscripts and early editions, then I commit them to print in source-critical modern editions that performers can read. (That background image up above? It's a selection of the source-critical editions I've published.)
It's why I constantly teach and help others to explore connections -- connections across history, among cultures, among disciplines and sub-disciplines. I collaborate, I teach, and do everything in my power to help others enrich their own lives through music.
My story is hardly unique, but it's also not without interest -- and I've had occasion to talk about it on several occasions. The most recent, and most complete, of these was written up in an excellent article by Andrew Felts in July 16, 2026 Faculty Feature news story from Southwestern University (here). That version, which for the first time identifies distinguished soprano Lucia Hawkins -- "the Songbird of Vicksburg," famous for her work creating as Carmen Jones and beyond -- as the catalyst for my work on Florence Price and Margaret Bonds and explains the extraordinary agency of Dr. Elvira Green, globally acclaimed mezzo-soprano, in identifying Hawkins, is itself a sequel of sorts to a 2022 Southwestern Magazine article about this aspect of my work. Podcast fans might also be interested in a conversation I had with Lydia Bangura, doctoral student at the University of Michigan, about the story and related issues (I think this was the first time I spoke publicly of my story). There's also an excellent story by Dr. Michael Clark titled "Polishing Hidden Gems: An Interview with John Michael Cooper," published in the August/September 2024 issue of American Music Teacher (here).
On this website's pages, check out the things I've done so far -- then reach out to me and let me know how we can work together to make great things happen through music. I'll look forward to hearing from you!
