Emil de Cou Cou has recorded extensively including world premiere recordings of Claude Debussy's original version of Printemps Suite Symphonique, the orchestral version of Suite Bergamasque, Charles Griffes's The Kairn of Koridwen, and Elliot Goldenthal's Othello (ballet). For his ongoing work with NASA de Cou was awarded the agency's Exceptional Public Achievement Medal by Administrator Charles F. Bolden, Jr. at the NSO @ Wolf Trap performance of The Planets in July 2012, the first musician to receive that honor. Emil de Cou Emil de Cou is an American conductor who became associate conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra (John F. Kennedy Center for
The Carnival of the Animals (better known in the English-speaking world as "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"), the French nursery rhymes "Au clair de la lune", and "J'ai du bon tabac" (the piano plays the same melody upside down), the popular anthem "Partant pour la Syrie", as well as the aria "Una voce poco fa" from Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" can also be heard. The musical joke in this movement, according to Leonard Bernstein's narration on his recording of the work with the New York Philharmonic, is that the musical pieces quoted are the fossils of Saint-Saëns's time. Two pianos and cello: the lushly romantic