Max Cooke studied at the University of Melbourne, specialising in Music at the University Conservatorium and languages in the Arts Faculty. He then proceeded to Europe where he studied piano at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, under the great concert pianist Alfred Cortot, and he studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

In 1951 he was invited by Professor Heinze to return to the Conservatorium as a member of staff. Max Cooke has remained on the staff of the University of Melbourne ever since. He started as Chief Study Teacher, was then Senior Lecturer and later Associate Professor (Reader), and he was for six years until 1981 Dean of the Faculty and Chairman of the Department of Music. He is a Professor at Monash University, and he teaches also at the Victorian College of the Arts.

His career is involved with performance and teaching, and he has produced a number of publications on music and on piano teaching, including one on Japanese Music Teaching Methods in Australia, and two on his work with musically gifted children. His publications titled TONE, TOUCH AND TECHNIQUE, together with CDs and videos that accompany them, have been used extensively by piano teachers and students. They combine wide pianistic knowledge and experience with very considerable investigation and research into the physics and physiology of piano performance. He has lectured on these publications in Europe and England as well as in Australia.

Max Cooke has been president of the Victorian Music Teachers Association, National President of the Australian Society for Music Education, and Chairman of the Commission on the Education of the Professional Musician within the International Society for Music Education (ISME).

In the field of performance, Max Cooke has played many times as soloist with orchestras, giving over sixty concerto presentations, and he has been regularly involved with chamber music and accompanying, playing both piano and harpsichord. He has worked with many local and overseas musicians, and has spent a considerable time in Europe, particularly in Germany. He has been an adjudicator on the panel of the Busoni International Piano
Competition in Bolzano (Italy).

With the TEAM OF PIANISTS which he directs, he has given and organised many recitals, has produced seven CDs and two videos, and he conducts broadcasts on radio 3 MBS FM. One of the Team¹s successful annual events is a series of recitals titled TWILIGHT CHAMBER MUSIC AT RIPPON LEA, involving the TEAM OF PIANISTS with leading musicians from Australia and overseas.

In 1988 Max Cooke was invited to become a Fellow of the Australian College of Education. In the Queen¹s birthday honours lists of1998, he was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for services to music and to education, particularly to piano pedagogy and the training of students. In 2001, Max Cooke received the 'Bundesverdienstkreuz' from the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Johannes Rau. This makes him an Officer of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic.

One of few Australian-based pianists who has sustained a long-term performing career independent of a major teaching position, Darryl Coote is highly esteemed for the depth of his musicianship and fine technique. He is a partner of the TEAM OF PIANISTS, Artists-in-Residence at the National Trust (Victoria). He pursues an active career as a solo pianist, chamber musician, concerto soloist, teacher and adjudicator. He studied piano with Max Cooke at the University of Melbourne, where he completed his studies for Bachelor of Music with Honours and subsequently Master of Music. He also studied with Kurt Bauer at the Musikhochschule, Hanover. He has been the recipient of a number of prizes and awards, including the Allans Award, the national Hephzibah Menuhin Memorial Scholarship, a Queen Elizabeth Award and was Victorian State winner of the ABC Instrumental and Vocal Competition.

Darryl has appeared in concert in many parts of Australia, including: Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, Hobart, Newcastle, Canberra, Brisbane, Toowoomba and the Gold Coast, as well as many of Victoria's metropolitan and regional venues. His concerto appearances include performances with the Melbourne Symphony's Town Hall series, the Arcata Orchestra of Stuttgart, the Victorian College of the Arts Symphony Orchestra and the New Monash Orchestra. During the past twelve years, he has presented programmes in the highly-acclaimed series TWILIGHT CHAMBER MUSIC AT RIPPON LEA. As an all-round ensemble performer, he often performs piano duets with Max Cooke, as well as major two-piano works with Robert Chamberlain. He is a sought-after chamber musician and accomanpanist, having worked with artists such as Anne Gilby (oboe), David Thomas (clarinet), Sally Anne Russell (mezzo soprano), Kathleen Southall-Casey (soprano), Dana Zeimer (soprano), Kristy Conrau (cello), Judith Hickel (violin), Charles Castleman (violin), Miwako Abe (violin) and Brian Hansford (baritone). He has undertaken a number of overseas tours, having performed in several German cities, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. In 2003 he toured the eastern states of Australia, as associate artist to acclaimed violinist Charles Castleman (Eastman School of Music, USA), and he partnered Charles Castleman again in 2005, performing sonatas by Debussy and Prokofiev, amongst other works. He has performed for the ACT Lieder Society and on the Mornington Peninsula together with noted mezzo-soprano, Sally-Anne Russell, an artist with whom he has collaborated for several years.

Darryl has recorded and broadcast extensively on Australian radio networks, including ABC Classic FM and 3MBS FM. He features on all nine CDs produced by the TEAM OF PIANISTS, having recorded Bruch's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra with Robert Chamberlain and the New Monash Orchestra conducted by André de Quadros. He is an experienced teacher, examiner and adjudicator, and is a member of the sessional piano staff at Monash University, as well as a council member of the Victorian Music Teachers' Association. In 2005 he adjudicated the senior piano sections at the Adelaide Eisteddfod, as well as all the piano sections at the Australian National Eisteddfod in Canberra. Recently he returned to Canberra to give a series of lectures for the Canberra Branch of the NSW Music Teachers' Association. Together with Max Cooke, he is one of the co-founders and an adjudicator of the Australian National Piano Award Shepparton, and he was secretary of the Organising Committee for the Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference (Melbourne, July 2003). He is a member of the Australian German Association, having performed for that association early in 2005 together with clarinettist Phillip Miechel and with soprano Merlyn Quaife.