Aaron Copland Composer

Born in Brooklyn, New York on 14 November 14, 1900, Copland studied in Manhattan with Rubin Goldmark, a respected private music instructor who taught him the fundamentals of counterpoint and composition. During these early years he immersed himself in contemporary classical music by attending performances at the New York Symphony and Brooklyn Academy of Music. At the age of twenty, he left New York for the Summer School of Music for American Students at Fountainebleau.

In France, Copland found a musical community unlike any he had known. Whilst in Europe the composer Serge Koussevitsky requested that Copland write a piece for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The piece, Symphony for Organ and Orchestra (1925) was Copland's entry into the life of professional American music. He followed this with Music for the Theater (1925) and Piano Concerto (1926), both of which relied heavily on the jazz idioms of the time.

It was in 1935 with El Salón México that Copland began his most productive and popular years. In his search for the widest audience, Copland began composing for the movies and ballet. Among his most popular compositions for film are those for Of Mice and Men (1939), Our Town (1940), and The Heiress (1949), which won him an Academy Award for best score. He composed scores for a number of ballets, including two of the most popular of the time: Agnes DeMille's Rodeo (1942) and Appalachian Spring (1944), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. Both ballets presented views of American country life that corresponded to the folk traditions Copland was interested in. Probably the most important and successful composition from this time was his patriotic A Lincoln Portrait (1942). The piece, for voice and orchestra, presents quotes from Lincoln's writings narrated over Copland's music.

Throughout the 50s, Copland slowed his work as a composer, and began to conduct. Over the next twenty years he travelled the world, conducting live performances and creating an important collection of recorded work.

Through these various commitments to music and to his country, Aaron Copland became one of the most important figures in twentieth-century American music. He died on December 2, 1990 in North Tarrytown, New York.

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