Lindsay Cooper

Lindsay Cooper (3 March 1951 – 18 September 2013) was an English bassoon and oboe player and composer. Best known for her work with the band Henry Cow, she was also a member of Comus, National Health, News from Babel and David Thomas and the Pedestrians. She collaborated with a number of musicians, including Chris Cutler and Sally Potter, and co-founded the Feminist Improvising Group. She wrote scores for film and TV and a song cycle Oh Moscow which was performed live around the world in 1987. She also recorded a number of solo albums, including Rags, The Gold Diggers (1983), and Music For Other Occasions (1986).

Cooper was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the late 1970s, but did not disclose it to the musical community until the late 1990s when her illness prevented her from performing live. In September 2013, Cooper died from the illness, in London, at the age of 62. Her classical training interested the group as they were continually looking for new musical directions. In spite of having just had all four wisdom teeth extracted, she immediately joined the band in the studio to record their second album Unrest (1974). However, following their European tour supporting Captain Beefheart, the group reorganized themselves and asked Cooper to leave, performing as a quartet on their Scandinavian tour of September 1974. But she still continued to guest on their albums and by February 1975 she rejoined the group again and remained a permanent member until they split up in 1978.

In 1990, Cooper spent a few months in Australia where she gave solo performances on bassoon, saxophone and electronics. She also collaborated with Australian singer, writer and theatre director Robyn Archer, arranging and composing the music for Archer's play Cafe Fledermaus, and Sahara Dust, a large scale jazz vocal piece with lyrics by Archer. Sahara Dust was released on CD in 1993 with the voice of Phil Minton, and reflected on the 1990–91 Gulf War and its impact on the world at large. Later that year, she worked in John Wolf Brennan's "Creative Works Orchestra" and performed at the Willisau Jazz Festival. She returned to Switzerland in 1991 performing in Brennan's "SinFONietta" at the Lucerne Festival.

Cooper released two collections of her contemporary dance pieces Schrödinger's Cat and An Angel on the Bridge in 1991 and performed her own composition "Concerto for Sopranino Saxophone and Strings" at the British Conservatory in London in 1992, a piece commissioned by the European Women's Orchestra. A third remembrance concert for Cooper featuring the same line-up above was held in Forlì, Italy on 23 November 2014. In a review of the Barbican concert on 21 November, Dom Lawson called it "a fitting salute to Cooper's life", adding "what tonight's experience never becomes is self‑indulgent: there's a sharpness to the intricate arrangements as very obvious waves of passion and commitment from everyone on stage flow and spread across the auditorium."

In November 2014, ReR Megacorp released a double CD Lindsay Cooper: Rarities | Volumes 1 & 2, a collection of unreleased and limited released tracks. Bassist Nasuno Mitsuru preparing before the second set of a live performance by the band Half the Sky on 22 June 2017 in London. In 2015, Half the Sky, a band formed by Yumi Hara and Cooper's former Henry Cow bandmate Chris Cutler to play her music, principally pieces for News from Babel and Henry Cow. The band has performed in Japan, France, the UK and Germany.

Discography Solo albums Rags (1981, LP, Arc Records, UK) The Golddiggers (1983, LP, Recommended Records, UK) – original soundtrack to the film The Gold Diggers by Sally Potter Music for Other Occasions (1986, LP, No Man's Land, Germany) Oh Moscow (1991, CD, Victo Records, Canada) An Angel on the Bridge (1991, CD, Phonogram/Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia) Schroedinger's Cat (1991, CD, Line/Femme Music, Germany) Sahara Dust (1993, CD, Intakt Records, Switzerland) A View from the Bridge (1998, 2xCD, Impetus Records, UK)

Compilation albums Rags / The Golddiggers (1991, CD, ReR Megacorp, UK) – includes Rags and most of The Golddiggers Rarities Volumes 1 & 2 (2014, 2xCD, Recommended Records, UK) – posthumous compilation of previously released rarities and previously unreleased material

Band and collaborative albums With Mike Oldfield Hergest Ridge (1974, LP, Virgin Records, UK) With Egg The Civil Surface (1974, LP, Caroline Records, UK) With Henry Cow Unrest (1974, LP, Virgin Records, UK) Concerts (1976, 2xLP, Caroline Records, UK) Western Culture (1979, LP, Broadcast, UK) The Virgin Years – Souvenir Box (1991, 3xCD, East Side Digital Records, US) Henry Cow Box (2006, 7xCD, Recommended Records, UK) Stockholm & Göteborg (2008, CD, Recommended Records, UK) The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set (2009, 9xCD+DVD, Recommended Records, UK) The Henry Cow Box Redux: The Complete Henry Cow (2019, 17xCD+DVD, Recommended Records, UK) With Slapp Happy/Henry Cow Desperate Straights (1975, LP, Virgin Records, UK) In Praise of Learning (1975, LP, Virgin Records, UK) With Comus To Keep from Crying (1974, LP, Virgin Records, UK) – recorded after Cooper left the group, with her appearing as a guest Out of the Coma (2012, CD, Coptic Cat, UK) – featuring Cooper's earliest known recording, a live performance from 1972 With Steve Hillage Fish Rising (1975, LP, Virgin Records, UK) With Hatfield and the North The Rotters' Club (1975, LP, Virgin Records, UK) With Art Bears Hopes and Fears (1978, LP, Recommended Records, UK) With Feminist Improvising Group Feminist Improvising Group (1979, Cassette, UK) With Mike Westbrook The Cortège (Original Records, 1982) Westbrook-Rossini (hat ART, 1987) Westbrook-Rossini, Zürich Live 1986 (hat ART, 1986 ) With Chris Cutler, Bill Gilonis, Tim Hodgkinson and Robert Wyatt The Last Nightingale (1984, LP, Recommended Records, UK) With News from Babel Work Resumed on the Tower (1984, LP, Recommended Records, UK) Letters Home (1986, LP, Recommended Records, UK) With David Thomas and the Pedestrians Winter Comes Home (1983, LP, Recommended Records, UK) Variations on a Theme (1983, LP, Rough Trade Records, UK) More Places Forever (1985, LP, Rough Trade Records, UK) With Maggie Nicols and Joëlle Léandre Live at the Bastille (1982) (1984, LP, Recommended Records, UK) With Catherine Jauniaux and Tim Hodgkinson Fluvial (1984, LP, Woof Records, UK) With Dagmar Krause Tank Battles: The Songs of Hanns Eisler (1988, LP, Island Records, UK) Panzerschlacht: Die Lieder von Hanns Eisler (1988, LP, Island Records, UK) With Anthony Phillips and Harry Williamson Tarka (1988, CD, Baillemont Records, France) With John Wolf Brennan Creative Works Orchestra: Live in Willisau & More (1991, CD, Creative Works Records, Switzerland) I.N.I.T.I.A.L.S.: Sources Along the Songlines (2005, CD, Creative Works Records, Switzerland) With David Motion and Sally Potter Orlando (1993, CD, Varèse Sarabande, US) – original soundtrack to the film Orlando by Sally Potter With Trio Trabant a Roma State of Volgograd (1994, CD, Free Music Production, Germany) With Tim Hodgkinson Each in Our Own Thoughts (1994, CD, Woof Records, UK) With Charles Gray Pia Mater (1997, CD, Resurgence, UK) With Rova Saxophone Quartet Bingo (1998, CD, Victo Records, Canada) – composer With The Orckestra "Unreleased Orckestra Extract" (3" CD single, 2006, Recommended Records, UK) With Fred Frith, Lars Hollmer and Gianni Gebbia Angels on the Edge of Time (2015, CD, I Dischi di Angelica, Italy) – recorded at the 1992 Angelica Festival