COPLAND, AARON

COPLAND, AARON (1900–1990), U.S. composer. Copland was born in Brooklyn, studied with Rubin goldmark in New York, and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Returning to the U.S. in 1924, he became active as a composer, teacher, and conductor. In his early years Copland attracted the attention of serge koussevitzky , then conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who became an ardent champion of his music. His Piano Concerto, which he played with Koussevitzky in 1927, shocked the staid Boston audience by its aggressive jazz idiom. But Copland's talent soon won for him universal acceptance. At Koussevitzky's invitation, he joined the faculty of the Berkshire Music Center in Tanglewood, and for 25 years was the head of its composition department (1940–65). He traveled extensively in Europe, visited Russia in 1960, toured Latin America, and was guest conductor in Israel several times. Copland stopped composing abruptly and completely in 1970, but remained active as a conductor and lecturer until the mid–1980s. There were performances throughout the world to mark his seventieth, seventy-fifth, eightieth, and eighty-fifth birthdays, and New York City honored him with a "Wall-to-Wall" Cop-land Day tribute. He published several books: What to Listen for in Music (1939); Our New Music (1941); Music and Imagination, a collection of lectures delivered at Harvard University (1952); and Copland on Music (1960). In 1964 he received the Medal of Freedom from the U.S. government. Many of his works, such as the ballet Billy the Kid (1938), Lincoln Portrait for speaker and orchestra (1942), and the ballets Rodeo (1942) and Appalachian Spring (1944) were based on distinctly American themes. El Salón México (1937) for orchestra made use of authentic Mexican dance tunes, united in the form of a rhapsody; Danzón Cubano for two pianos (1942), a similar stylization of Cuban rhythms, was also arranged for orchestra. Copland wrote much chamber music, notably: Vitebsk for piano, violin, and cello, based on a popular Jewish theme (1929), Concerto for clarinet, strings, harp, and piano (1950), Piano Quartet (1950) and Nonet for strings (1960). His piano works include Variations (1930); Sonata (1941); Fantasy (1957). In 1962, for the opening concert of Lincoln Center in New York, Copland wrote his first work explicitly composed in the 12-tone technique, entitled Connotations. He also wrote music for the play Quiet City and several film scores. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: A.V. Berger, Aaron Copland (Eng., 1953); J.F. Smith, Aaron Copland, his Work and Contribution to American Music (1955); Sternfeld, in: Musical Quarterly, 37 (1951), 161–75; G. Saleski, Famous Musicians of Jewish Origin (1949), 36–41; Grove, Dict; Baker, Biog Dict; Sendrey, Music, index; Riemann-Gurlitt; MGG. (Nicolas Slonimsky)