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George Antheil
George Antheil
American avant-garde composer, pianist, author and inventor
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Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Russian composer, pianist and conductor
2
Harold Shapero
Harold Shapero
American composer
3
Ernest Ansermet
Ernest Ansermet
Swiss conductor (1883–1969)
4
Irving Fine
Irving Fine
American composer
5
George Gershwin
George Gershwin
American composer and pianist (1898-1937)
6
Charles Wuorinen
Charles Wuorinen
American composer
7
Henry Cowell
Henry Cowell
American composer, music theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario
8
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Austrian-American composer (1874-1951)
9
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Ukrainian & Russian Soviet pianist and composer
10
Elliott Carter
Elliott Carter
American composer
11
Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger
French musician and teacher
12
Nikos Skalkottas
Nikos Skalkottas
greek composer and musician
13
André Jolivet
André Jolivet
French composer
14
Charles Ives
Charles Ives
American composer
15
Ingvar Lidholm
Ingvar Lidholm
Swedish composer
16
Jerome Moross
Jerome Moross
American composer; film score composer
17
Francis Poulenc
Francis Poulenc
French composer and pianist (1899-1963)
18
Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Austrian composer and conductor
19
Eugene Aynsley Goossens
Eugene Aynsley Goossens
English conductor and composer
20
Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Austrian composer
21
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist
22
Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
French composer
23
Erich Zeisl
Erich Zeisl
Austrian composer
24
Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness
Armenian-American composer
25
Donald Martino
Donald Martino
American composer
26
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
French composer, organist, pianist and teacher
Aaron Copland
American composer, composition teacher, writer, and conductor

Aaron Copland

Intro
American composer, composition teacher, writer, and conductor
Record Labels
Awards Received
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score
Rome Prize
National Medal of Arts
Handel Medallion
Presidential Medal of Freedom
Charles E. Lutton Man of Music Award
Kennedy Center Honors
Grammy Trustees Award
Pulitzer Prize for Music
Congressional Gold Medal
Fulbright Scholarship
Pulitzer Prize
Nominated For
Academy Award for Best Original Score Academy Award for Best Score, Adaptation or Treatment Academy Award for Best Original Score Academy Award for Best Score, Adaptation or Treatment Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score
News
Member of, past and present
American Academy of Arts and Letters

American Academy of Arts and Letters

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

National Academy of Fine Arts (Argentina)

National Academy of Fine Arts (Argentina)

Aaron Copland as subject of a Young People's Concert, 1970

Aaron Copland (/ˈkoʊplənd/, KOHP-lənd; November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Composers". The open, slowly changing harmonies in much of his music are typical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit. He is best known for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s in a deliberately accessible style often referred to as "populist" and which the composer labeled his "vernacular" style. Works in this vein include the ballets Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid and Rodeo, his Fanfare for the Common Man and Third Symphony. In addition to his ballets and orchestral works, he produced music in many other genres, including chamber music, vocal works, opera and film scores.

After some initial studies with composer Rubin Goldmark, Copland traveled to Paris, where he first studied with Isidor Philipp and Paul Vidal, then with noted pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. He studied three years with Boulanger, whose eclectic approach to music inspired his own broad taste. Determined upon his return to the U.S. to make his way as a full-time composer, Copland gave lecture-recitals, wrote works on commission and did some teaching and writing. However, he found that composing orchestral music in the modernist style, which he had adopted while studying abroad, was a financially contradictory approach, particularly in light of the Great Depression. He shifted in the mid-1930s to a more accessible musical style which mirrored the German idea of Gebrauchsmusik ("music for use"), music that could serve utilitarian and artistic purposes. During the Depression years, he traveled extensively to Europe, Africa, and Mexico, formed an important friendship with Mexican composer Carlos Chávez and began composing his signature works.

During the late 1940s, Copland became aware that Stravinsky and other fellow composers had begun to study Arnold Schoenberg's use of twelve-tone (serial) techniques. After he had been exposed to the works of French composer Pierre Boulez, he incorporated serial techniques into his Piano Quartet (1950), Piano Fantasy (1957), Connotations for orchestra (1961) and Inscape for orchestra (1967). Unlike Schoenberg, Copland used his tone rows in much the same fashion as his tonal material—as sources for melodies and harmonies, rather than as complete statements in their own right, except for crucial events from a structural point of view. From the 1960s onward, Copland's activities turned more from composing to conducting. He became a frequent guest conductor of orchestras in the U.S. and the UK and made a series of recordings of his music, primarily for Columbia Records.