“David Cooper may be the most spectacular case of ‘local boy makes good’ to come out of Lansing since Magic Johnson,” writes Lawrence Cosentino in Thursday’s (1/4) Lansing City Pulse (Michigan). “Cooper, who grew up in DeWitt on the western edge of town, was named principal horn of the Berlin Philharmonic in 2016. He’ll get a grand homecoming as soloist with the Lansing Symphony Saturday…. He produced his first horn blast at his grandma’s house in Lansing, when he was four years old…. Cooper’s grandmother, Marie Grasius, studied the horn after seeing John Philip Sousa’s band in Brookings, South Dakota, around 1910.… When Cooper’s grandparents moved to East Lansing in 1953, Marie and her brother, Edward, both played in the Lansing Symphony…. Saturday night in Lansing, he’ll play one of the greatest of all horn concertos, by Russian composer Reinhold Glière…. Cooper has been nuts about the concerto since high school. ‘I played it a bunch when I was in Michigan when I was in my teens,’ he said. ‘This piece has a real connection for me with Lansing. I couldn’t ask for a better homecoming piece.’ ”
Posted January 5, 2018
