French horn player shows his brass> Canadian quintet’s youngest member performs with a coolness not usually associated with the instrument

Play an electric guitar, and you’re hip. Play the sax, and you’re smooth. But the French horn? It’s not easy to cultivate a cool rep when you play such an ornate piece of metal.

But Chris Cooper has found a way. Two months ago, he signed on as the youngest member of The Canadian Brass, a quintet of players known for their spirited and nutty approach to both classical and, well, other, types of music. “This is about as unstodgy as it gets,” said Cooper who is 31.

He chuckled as he told of playing Bach and other classical composers, such as Bizet, whose two-hour opera “Carmen” is staged in a 10-minute brass rendition during concerts. The piece has become a signature work for the group and will be a highlight when Canadian Brass returns to Maine Dec. 18 for a holiday concert at the Maine Center for the Arts.

Cooper’s right: For a group that has been around 28 years, Canadian Brass has never run the risk of being called stodgy. Nevertheless, Cooper’s own beginnings in music have a rather buttoned-up beginning. His inspiration to be a horn player came, he said, as a boy watching a musician on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”

“I thought it made a beautiful sound,” said Cooper, speaking from his home in Diamond Heights, a neighborhood in San Francisco.

Down the road a ways in Mountain View, where Cooper grew up, the public schools had dynamite music programs, which fostered his talent until the Cooper family moved East. There, at age 12, Cooper joined the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra and eventually met David Ohanian, a horn teacher and a member of Canadian Brass.

When Ohanian retired his position with the chamber group last summer, Cooper was one of more than a dozen horn players auditioned.

“All these guys played wonderfully,” said Eugene Watts, co-founder and trombonist for the group. “But we were looking for a particular sound and a particular type of blend which Chris had. Also we were looking for an attitude, an artistic drive. And that’s what we found in Chris.”

Cooper’s first concert with Canadian Brass, which is based in Toronto, was in front of 40,000 at a London concert. “I was nervous and self-conscious,” he said. But, according to his colleagues, he was, in a word, brassy.

“That takes a certain strength of nervous system,” said Charles Daellenbach, co-founder as well as tuba player. “Chris is a brilliant horn player. This job is not like an individual staking out a career and it grows around him. He’s jumping onto a fast-moving train.”

All three of the group members agreed that Canadian Brass has developed a new sound, characterized by warmer, darker sounds than in earlier years. They continue to tour, with more than 130 concerts a year, nearly half of them in Europe, and, every other year, they go to Asia.

For Cooper, there’s excitement in every minute of the touring schedule, the two-a-year recordings that come out, and the lessons of working with master brass players.

But what about the veterans? Are they still having fun after all these years?

“Oh yes,” said Watts, who was about Cooper’s age when the group began. “I’m at the spot now that if it’s not fun, I don’t have to do it any more. And, at my age, I have nothing else to do. I’m closer to the age where people say: Don’t you want to go to Florida?”

But, for now, it’s the holiday season. Even though the ensemble plays throughout the year and just put out a tribute recording to John Lennon and the Beatles, brass music is particularly popular in December. The repertoire of Christmas songs is vast for these brassmen.

“You name it, we’re probably going to play it,” said Cooper, well on his way to becoming a way-cool French horn player.

The Canadian Brass will perform 8 p.m. Dec. 18 at the Maine Center for the Arts. For tickets, call 581-1755.