Born: November 14, 1900 Died: December 2, 1990

Aaron Copland was born on November 14, 1900, in Brooklyn, New York, the youngest of five children born to Harris Morris Copland and Sarah Mittenthal Copland, who were Jewish immigrants from Lithuania. The family lived above a department store, which they owned. One of Copland's sisters showed him how to play piano when he was eleven years old.

After his sister taught him he began taking lessons from a teacher in the neighborhood. At age 15 he decided he wanted to be a composer. At age 16 he went to Manhattan to study with Rubin Goldmark. He found he was attracted to the classical history and musicians of Europe. At age 20, he left New York for the Summer School of Music for American Students at Fountainebleau, France. There his main teacher was the French composer Nadia Boulanger. Early studies

In France, Copland sold his first composition to Durand and Sons. It was the most respected music publisher in France. He found he liked the music of Scriabin, Debussy, and Ravel. The time in Paris gave him a chance to take in and hear all the trends in European music, like the works of Stravinsky, Bartók, Schoenberg and Koussevitsky His Time in France:

After Copland completed his studies in 1924, he returned to America and composed his first major works: Symphony for Organ and Orchestra. He followed this with “Music for the Theater” (1925) and “Piano Concerto” (1926), both had jazz influences. For Copland, jazz was the first American major musical movement and wanted to get inspiration from it. In the late 1920s he moved away from jazz and turned to popular music of other countries. The 20’s

In the 1920s and 1930s there wasn’t a audience for the new music. Copland, trying to change that, was in organizations for performance and sponsorship, like: The League of Composers, The Copland-Sessions Concerts, and The American Composers' Alliance. He began the Copland-Sessions concerts, with his friend Roger Sessions. 20’s & 30’s

Beginning in the mid-1930s , Copland tried to change his style. He started composing music for theater, ballet, films, and for concerts. And in the 50’s, Copland began to try conducting. He done it for the next 20 years. Ballets: Billy the Kid (1938), and Appalachian Spring (1944) Films: Of Mice and Men(1939) 30’s – 50’s

During the 70’s he had stopped writing music. And in 1983 Copland conducted his last symphony. His books gave him devoted fans, and on December 2, 1990, Aaron Copland died in North Tarrytown, New York. In his lifetime, he received a Pulitzer Prize, an Academy Award, and a Congressional Medal for patriotism. Near the end…

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