Arnold Cooke

Arnold Atkinson Cooke (4 November 1906 – 13 August 2005) was a British composer, a pupil of Paul Hindemith. He wrote a considerable amount of chamber music, including five string quartets and many instrumental sonatas, much of which is only now becoming accessible through modern recordings. Cooke also composed two operas (still unperformed), six symphonies and several concertos. Education Cooke was born at Gomersal, West Yorkshire, into a family of carpet manufacturers. As a child, Cooke learned to play the piano, and later the cello, and began composing by the age of 7 or 8. He was educated at Streete Preparatory School, Repton School and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he read history, taking Part 1 of his Tripos in 1927, earning his B.A. He changed to read music with his composition teacher E. J. Dent. At Cambridge, Cooke continued to play the cello in the CUMS orchestra and in a string quartet. He was President of the Cambridge Musical Society from 1927 to 1928. In 1929, he gained his Music degree and went to Berlin where he studied composition and piano at the Berlin University of the Arts under Paul Hindemith. Hindemith’s composition class also included Harald