Aaron Copland: The Soundtrack of America

Native New Yorker Aaron Copland was a multi-faceted artist: composer, pianist, conductor, author and educator. He is best known for the music he penned in the 1930’s-1940’s, his “Populist” period. We will explore these works including the “Ukelele Serenade,” “Appalachian Spring,” “Billy the Kid,” “Rodeo,” “Fanfare for the Common Man,” the “Clarinet Concerto,” “El Salón Mexico,” “Lincoln Portrait,” and the “Third Symphony” as well as Hollywood film scores to The Heiress and Of Mice and Men. In an arc that spanned his native Brooklyn, Paris, and a return to New York, Copland tapped his Jewish roots, Jazz, Folk, Blues, and French Classical Music to create musical tapestries no one had heard before. Along the way, he collaborated with such luminaries as Martha Graham, Leonard Bernstein, Carlos Chavez, Nadia Boulanger, Serge Koussevitzky, Igor Stravinsky and Isamu Noguchi, blazing a path in American music as an influencer and a role model. No musical knowledge is necessary for the enjoyment of this class.

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