Tim Cooper (1954 - ) was born in Ingersoll, Ontario. He received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from the University of Toronto. In 1978 he began teaching at the University of New Brunswick in the Faculty of Education, where he is presently a full professor. In 1989 he completed his DMA in Choral Conducting and Literature from the University of Georgia in Athens. Dr. Cooper has dedicated his musical life to working with amateur choirs. He has conducted choirs in the Anglican, Baptist, Roman Catholic and United Churches. In addition, he has conducted choral societies and amateur chamber choirs in Fredericton, NB since 1978. Dr. Cooper has extensive experience as a choral clinician, festival adjudicator and is the former Vice-president of the Association of Canadian Choral Conductors (ACCC) and former Editor of Anacrusis, the ACCC journal. When time permits, he also appears as a tenor soloist with various choirs throughout the Maritimes (or wherever he happens to be living). Dr. Cooper began writing music when he was in high school and, like Benjamin Britten, always writes for specific people, groups and situations. He is very happily married to his wife,Susan Bleakney. Together they have six wonderful children, one of whom has just given them their second grandchild (although they think they are much too young to be grandparents).

The majority of Dr. Cooper's music is written for choirs, although he has also written works for bassoon, organ, string quartet, band, piano, and a Requiem Mass for SATB chorus and soloists with full orchestra. Clearly defined melodies sometimes escape their diatonic boundaries, just as normally metrical rhythms occasionally turn unexpectedly in time, yet all of Dr. Cooper's music is very accessible to the performer as well as the listener.