Kristina Reiko Cooper has won widespread acclaim for her musical versatility, her virtuosity, her charismatic stage presence and her passionate intensity. She has found great success in numerous forms of media, from her best-selling DVDs and CDs, to television performances and commercials, magazine covers, print fashion ads and even her own magazine columns. Although well known for traversing musical genres, Cooper first established her career as a classical artist. She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician on many of the world’s most distinguished stages. Cooper is a frequent featured performer at such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Jerusalem’s Henry Crown Hall, Toronto’s Roy Thompson Hall and Kioi Hall of Tokyo.

As a chamber musician, Kristina Reiko Coope received the Walter M. Naumburg Chamber Music Award first prize. She has been a member of many renowned ensembles, including the internationally acclaimed Quartetto Gelato, Musicians from Marlboro, and The Whitman String Quartet, and continues to perform as part of the contemporary music group Continuum, and the popular and eclectic ensemble Intersection, also known as Kristina & Laura.

Kristina Reiko Coope received her bachelors and masters degrees in music and her doctorate of musical arts from The Juilliard School in New York City. When not on tour, she splits her time between New York and Israel, where she’s a Visiting Professor of Music at Hebrew University and Musical Co-Director of The Israel Chamber Music Society.

About Stone and Steel
Enchanting cellist Kristina Reiko Cooper’s latest CD, Stone and Steel, is a scintillating combination of the ancient and the modern. Cooper takes some old classics—Gregorian chants, songs of the ever-popular Elizabethan composer John Dowland and the haunting aria from Dido and Aeneus, Dido’s Lament—and musically expresses them in a completely fresh and novel way.

Stone and Steel is scored for cello, piano and percussion and will be released on the Linus Entertainment label, distributed by Koch Distribution in the USA and Universal Music in Canada.

Stone and Steel was originally inspired by the time Cooper has spent living in Israel. The juxtaposition of the ancient and the modern, in terms of architecture, culture and thought, have made a huge impression on her. She has always lived in big, modern cities, in glass and steel structures, but mostly plays music that was composed centuries ago, using her very old instrument—her cello is from 1786. Stone and Steel represents who she is as a person and as an artist.

“Sensational in concert.”
~The New York Times

“A striking virtuoso.”
~The Los Angeles Times