ANITA ANDERSON COOPER
We are pleased to welcome Anita Anderson-Cooper as our Interim Conductor for the year 2023-2024.
Anita Anderson Cooper received degrees from Westminster College, Boston University and Delta State University. She has worked as a professional musician, conductor and performer and has taught classes at Manhattan School of Music in New York City and Smith College. She is a frequent soloist and guest conductor throughout New England and has premiered many new vocal compositions including Willis Bridegam's Robert Frost cycle and seven Emily Dickinson settings performed for the re-dedication of the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst. She has received four National Endowment for the Humanities grants including time to study Mozart's music in Vienna, Austria and the Blues, Gospel and Spirituals in the Mississippi Delta and Voting/Civil Rights in Selma and Montgomery, AL. She completed her first program of composed songs, "Snapshots of Civil Rights," in 2019 and her song cycle of the poet Dr. Gloria House (Aneb Kgostisile) was premiered in July, 2022 at Sevenars Music Festival. More of her original music is available on the YouTube channel Anita Anderson Coooper Music.
Her many choral ensembles have won MICCA Gold Medals and her Amherst Chorale and Hurricane Singers won the WGBY television series "Together in Song" four years straight and WGBY produced an EMMY nominated special "We Sang to the Top" about her work with the ensemble.
She lives in Amherst, MA with photographer David Hillerby, her son, Patrik, and their dog, Joey.