Music at the Hills Church

William David Cooper is a composer, conductor and organist with over twelve years of experience as a church music director and choral conductor. A student of Thomas Bara and Paul Jacobs, he has performed as a soloist and accompanist in venues throughout the country, and specializes in improvisation of a variety of styles. His three operas have been featured by Fort Worth Opera, West Edge Opera, the National Opera Association, the Nelson-Atkins Museum and the UC Davis Early Music Ensemble. His St. Luke Passion and Requiem were recently commissioned by St. Peter’s Church, NYC, and his choral music has also been performed by The New York Virtuoso Singers, and C4. He is the recipient of awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP and the American Prize. He has received fellowships from the Aspen Music Festival, the Composers Conference, Brush Creek, I-Park, Ucross and VCCA. His music has been featured on several recently released recordings, including Boston Etudes Project (Jihye Chang, New Focus Recordings), Mirrors (Lysander Trio, First Hand Records, 2021) and Nong (gamin, Innova Records, 2020). An alumnus of the Juilliard School and UC Davis, Cooper's teachers include Samuel Adler (composition) and Paul Jacobs (organ). He has served as music director at First Baptist Church (Lafayette, IN), St. Martin's (Davis, CA), St. James (New London, CT), and as director of the Early Music Ensemble (UC Davis) and the Walnut Hill Chorus (Natick, MA). In addition to serving as Director of Music at the Hills Church, he is Head of Theory and Composition at Walnut Hill School for the Arts.