Pianist Christopher Cooley has concertized with various instrumental and vocal soloists in five continents, as well as Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall. As a soloist, he has played with the University of Texas Symphony, the Chamber Orchestra of Florida, and the Musica Bella Orchestra of New York. As a collaborative pianist, he has served on the staff of numerous summer opera festivals in Italy, Germany, and Austria, as well as the Castleton Festival in Virginia, the Piatigorsky Seminar for Cellists in L.A., and the Varna International Music Festival. He holds degrees from Florida State University, the University of Texas at Austin, and a doctorate in Collaborative Piano from the Manhattan School of Music.

Dr. Cooley has enjoyed a wide variety of musical activities as a freelance accompanist, organist, cocktail pianist, arranger, and composer in and around New York City for over 25 years. Recent projects include performances with Concert Chorale of Harlem and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Jamaica in Kingston, Jamaica; a workshop of Sheila Silver’s new opera “A Thousand Splendid Suns”; a summer tour of Europe including work as pianist and composer at festivals in Italy; a Broadway-themed dinner cruise for Hornblower Cruises, for which he arranged the music; and the Paper Mill Playhouse (NJ) New Voices Concerts, a summer musical theater program for which he has served as pianist and arranger for 15 years. He spent five years as music director of St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church in White Plains, where the choir premiered several of his compositions and arrangements. Currently he is organist at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Bedford, NY.

As a composer, Cooley’s original pieces “Il Canto della Rosa” (2007) and “Play On” (2019) were premiered in Italy, the latter being premiered at Orvieto Musica. His choral music has been sung extensively by the Vanguard Voices (Dearborn, MI), who also awarded his “Unsubdued” an Honorable Mention in their competition. His choral piece “Garden of Love” was recently published by Peermusic, a division of Hal Leonard, and his “What Weeping Face” was premiered in Japan and published by the International Choral Organization of Tokyo. He premiered his song cycle “At First Sight” in February 2020 with soprano Diana Thompson in Augusta, Georgia. As a musical theater composer, he participated in the BMI workshop, where his song, “Completely Different Place”, written with lyricist Benj Pasek, was later recorded by Tony Award winner Kelli O’Hara. His short musical “A Bit of Blue” was featured in the New York Festival of Musical Theater 2010.

Dr. Cooley spent one year working as a vocal coach and pianist at the Klaipeda State Music Theatre in Klaipeda, Lithuania, where he performed in productions of Nunsense (in Lithuanian) and Donizetti’s La fille du régiment, for which he also coached the French language. While in Lithuania he also played for Karta Amerikoj, a unique retro-American swing trio, and contributed lyrics to many of their original songs. Dr. Cooley has served as a staff vocal coach, accompanist, and adjunct instructor at New York University and Brooklyn College. He recently returned from Columbia SC, where he was a music director and recitalist at the Varna International Music Festival.