| Born: | November 14, 1900 |  |
| Died: | December 2, 1990 | |
| Nationality: | American | |
| Era: | Twentieth Century | |
| Main genre: | Piano, symphonies, ballet, movie scores | |
| Main works: |
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| Brief biography: | Born in November 14, 1900, in Brooklyn, New York, Copland was the son of two Lithuanian immigrants, Harris and Sarah Copland. He got a late start compared to many musicians , when at age 12 he learned to play the piano from his sister. After a year and a half of teaching himself he finally branched out to take formal lessons. By 1921 he had received a scholarship to study at the music school for Americans at Fontainbleau near Paris. There Copland would study under one of the greatest composition teachers of the 20th Century, Nadia Boulanger. Boulanger moved Copland from writing short piano pieces to writing symphonies and ballets. Perhaps one of his best works was Appalachian Spring,
which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1945. Copland was commissioned to write
a ballet by Martha Graham. He started writing it in 1943 and finished
the following year while teaching at Harvard. The piece was given the
name Appalachian Spring only two days before
its' premier by Martha Graham. Appalachian Spring
boasted a sound every bit as American as his previous works, Billy
the Kid, and Quiet City. With
choreography by Martha Graham the ballet won immediate success and acclaim
when it debuted in Washington, D.C., October 30, 1944. Copland turned
to folk music for material in this piece. The Shaker song, Simple
Gifts, was used in one section of the song. All of the pieces
in Appalachian Spring reflect folk songs Appalachia's,
but only Simple Gifts is a quoted song. This
is ironic because the play is set in Pennsylvania where there is a marriage
to take place between the two leading characters, but there were no Shakers
in Pennsylvania and as a Shaker you were not allowed to marry. | |