Aaron Copland Biography Quotes 7 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Aaron Copland was born on November 14, 1900, in Brooklyn, New York, the youngest of five children of Harris Morris Copland and Sarah Mittenthal, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. He grew up above the family store, absorbing the sounds of the city and of popular song. Interested in music from childhood, he undertook formal study in composition with Rubin Goldmark in New York, learning rigorous craft at a time when American concert music was still searching for an identity distinct from European models.

Paris and the Formation of a Voice
In 1921 Copland traveled to France and entered the vibrant artistic world of interwar Paris. At the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau he met Nadia Boulanger, whose blend of exacting technique, broad culture, and moral clarity profoundly shaped his musical outlook. Through Boulanger he gained confidence in writing with both clarity and modern sensibility, and he encountered the music of Igor Stravinsky and the aesthetics of neoclassicism that would influence his craft. When he returned to the United States in the mid-1920s, he brought a cosmopolitan technique and a determination to make a distinctly American concert music.

First Successes and Advocates
Copland's early orchestral scores won crucial champions. In 1925 the Symphony for Organ and Orchestra was premiered in New York with Nadia Boulanger as soloist and Walter Damrosch on the podium; Damrosch's quip about the "young savage" was followed by support from Serge Koussevitzky, who would become one of Copland's most important advocates with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Copland also built institutions. With Roger Sessions he organized the Copland, Sessions Concerts for contemporary music, and he wrote influential criticism for Minna Lederman's magazine Modern Music, promoting a community of American composers and a sharper public discourse about new work.

Finding an American Idiom
In the 1930s Copland turned toward a plainer, more spacious style that blended modern technique with American dance rhythms, folk tunes, and open harmonies. El Salon Mexico (1936), spurred by his friendship with Carlos Chavez and travels in Mexico, transformed popular melodies into orchestral color; Chavez conducted an early performance in Mexico City. Ballets brought his language to broad audiences. Billy the Kid (1938) for Lincoln Kirstein's Ballet Caravan, with choreography by Eugene Loring, drew on cowboy songs to frame a frontier myth. Rodeo (1942), created with Agnes de Mille for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, celebrated vernacular dance and produced the now-famous "Hoe-Down". Appalachian Spring (1944), commissioned by Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge for Martha Graham's company, epitomized Copland's wide-open sonorities and includes the Shaker tune "Simple Gifts". The three scores helped define the sound of American concert music in the mid-20th century.

Public Works in Wartime
During World War II, Copland wrote music that addressed civic themes. Eugene Goossens commissioned Fanfare for the Common Man (1942) for the Cincinnati Symphony; its burnished brass chords became an emblem of democratic aspiration. The same year, Lincoln Portrait combined orchestra with spoken quotations from Abraham Lincoln, a format that brought Copland's craftsmanship into dialogue with national memory. His Symphony No. 3 (1946), commissioned and premiered by Serge Koussevitzky, wove the Fanfare into its finale and has often been called a quintessential American symphony.

Film, Theater, and Concert Hall
Copland's clarity of gesture and narrative instinct made him a major figure in Hollywood. He scored Of Mice and Men (1939) and The Red Pony (1949) for Lewis Milestone, Our Town (1940) for Sam Wood, The North Star (1943), and The Heiress (1949) for William Wyler, the last earning him an Academy Award. Later he contributed the raw-edged score to Something Wild (1961), recasting material as Music for a Great City. In the concert hall he wrote the Clarinet Concerto (1948) for Benny Goodman and arranged the Old American Songs (1950, 52), which brought 19th-century melodies into contemporary recital and orchestral life.

Teacher, Mentor, and Writer
A tireless advocate for others, Copland taught at the Tanglewood Music Center, working closely with Serge Koussevitzky and guiding younger composers. Leonard Bernstein, who considered Copland a mentor and friend, became one of his great interpreters and later led premieres of Copland's late works with the New York Philharmonic. Copland also encouraged figures such as Harold Shapero and, through his public activities, contributed to a broader climate that nurtured colleagues like William Schuman and Elliott Carter. His books, notably What to Listen for in Music (1939), Our New Music (1941), and the Harvard lectures collected as Music and Imagination (1952), helped generations of listeners engage with contemporary music. Late in life he collaborated with oral historian Vivian Perlis on the two-volume autobiography Copland: 1900 Through 1942 and Copland: Since 1943.

Cultural Leadership and Public Life
Committed to building infrastructure for American composition, Copland helped found organizations such as the American Music Center and served as an energetic spokesman on panels and in the press. During the New Deal he was involved with programs that brought composers before public audiences. The Cold War brought scrutiny: in the early 1950s he was called before a congressional committee amid anticommunist investigations, and a planned performance of Lincoln Portrait at a presidential inaugural concert was canceled. Although the episode was bruising, he continued to appear publicly, conduct, lecture, and represent American music abroad, including cultural diplomacy trips to Latin America.

Late Style and Experiment
After the public triumphs of the 1940s, Copland explored more abstract paths, adopting twelve-tone procedures while retaining his hallmark transparency. The Piano Quartet (1950), Piano Fantasy (1957), Connotations (1962), and Inscape (1967) reveal a leaner, intense language. Leonard Bernstein premiered Connotations at the opening of Philharmonic Hall at Lincoln Center, and later conducted Inscape, underscoring the bond between composer and interpreter. Even as his idiom evolved, Copland's sense of proportion, color, and the singing line remained intact.

Personal Connections
Copland's life was interwoven with artists and patrons who shaped his path. Beyond his formative bond with Nadia Boulanger and his partnership with Serge Koussevitzky, he sustained lifelong friendships with Carlos Chavez and Virgil Thomson. In the realm of dance he worked intimately with Martha Graham, Agnes de Mille, and Eugene Loring, each collaboration refining his understanding of movement and musical space. In his personal life he maintained close companionships, notably with the photographer Victor Kraft. Erik Johns, writing under the pseudonym Horace Everett, supplied the libretto for Copland's opera The Tender Land (1954), a work that reflected the populist themes he had pursued since the 1930s.

Honors and Legacy
Copland received major recognition across his career, including the Pulitzer Prize for Music for Appalachian Spring and the Academy Award for The Heiress. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and later received Kennedy Center Honors, emblematic of his status as a cultural figure whose music bridged concert hall, theater, film, and public ceremony. As a conductor he toured widely and recorded his own works, leaving authoritative accounts that have shaped the way audiences hear his music. Through teaching at Tanglewood and his institutional work, he helped create a framework in which American composers could flourish.

Final Years
From the late 1960s onward Copland composed less, turning to conducting, recording, and advocacy. He made his home in the Hudson Valley, remaining a visible presence in American musical life. His health declined in the 1980s, and he died on December 2, 1990, in North Tarrytown, New York. The clarity and generosity of his art, forged with teachers, collaborators, patrons, and students across two continents, continue to define how listeners imagine the sound of America.

Our collection contains 7 quotes who is written by Aaron, under the main topics: Wisdom - Music.

Other people realated to Aaron: Igor Stravinsky (Composer), Michael Tilson Thomas (Musician), Leonard Slatkin (Celebrity), Paul Bowles (Composer), Charles Munch (Musician), Benny Goodman (Musician)