Aaron Copland was born in 1900 in Brooklyn, New York (USA). Born into a family of Russian immigrants, he studied piano from an early age with famous pianists Victor Wittgenstein and Clarence Adler. From 1921 to 1924 he was taught by Ricardo Viñes (1875-1943) at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau, France. It was there that he met Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), he says, "I knew immediately that I had found my master." Back in the US in 1924, he founded in 1928 the Copland-Sessions concerts in New York concert series to promote the young American music then, from 1932 to 1933, directed the Contemporary Music Festival Yaddo (New York ), continuing a career as a pianist, conductor and teacher. In 1938, he agreed to write to the cast of Lincoln Kirstein, the "Ballet Caravan" ("New York City Ballet"), a ballet about the life of Billy the Kid, first expressed in western musical language. In the 1950s, he was one of the victims of McCarthyism, and listed on the Black List of American cinema; Copland, who wrote in 1930 of "Piano Variations" in a twelve-tone writing style, became interested again in serialism, taking "the outline of the theory to suit my own needs" (Copland) and many works by Copland from this period will be marked by serial writing. Paul Bowles (1910-1999), José Pablo Moncayo (1912-1958), Knut Nystedt (born 1915), Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983), Antonio Estévez (1916-1988), Robert Ward (born in 1917), Juan Orrego-Salas (born 1919), Halim El-Dabh (born in 1921), Raymond Wilding-White (1922-2001), Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004), Lester Trimble (1923-1986), Yehoshua Lakner (1924- 2003), Ben-Zion Orgad (1926-2006), Jacob Druckman (1928-1996), Samuel Adler (born 1928), Karl Korte (born 1928), Einojuhani Rautavaara (born 1928), Charles Strouse (born 1928), Alvin Lucier (born 1931), Mario Davidovsky (born 1934), Richard Wernick (born in 1934), Anthony Iannaccone (born 1943), Michael Tilson Thomas (born 1944), Elliot Goldenthal (born 1954 ) and John Verrall are among his most famous pupils. In the early 1970s, Copland fell victim to Alzheimer's disease, and will now stop composing. He died in 1990 in North Tarrytown, New York (USA).
Among the major works of Copland, one can note a "Passacaglia", the "Piano Variations", a sonata and "Fantasy" for piano, a Sonata for violin and piano, Duo for flute and piano, Piano Quartet, a piano concerto, a concerto for clarinet, "Fanfare for the Common Man" for wind orchestra and percussion, "Symphonic Ode", "Statements", "El Salón México", "Lincoln Portrait", "Connotations", "Inscape "and" Three Latin American Sketches "for orchestra, Symphony for Organ and Orchestra, a" Dance Symphony ", three other symphonies, the opera" The Tender Land "Ballets" Grogh, "" Billy the Kid, "" Rodeo "," Appalachian Spring "and" Dance Panels "," Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson "and" Old American Songs, "" Four Motets "and several film scores.
