Aaron Copland: The Dean of American Composers

07/11/22 • 1 min

Description
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Take a minute to get the scoop!
Fun Fact
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.
About Steven, Host
Steven is a Canadian composer living in Toronto. He creates a range of works, with an emphasis on the short-form genre—his muse being to offer the listener both the darker and more satiric shades of human existence. If you're interested, please check out his website for more. Member of the Canadian League Of Composers.
A Note To Music Students et al.
All recordings and sheet music are available on my site. I encourage you to take a look and play through some. Give me a shout if you have any questions.
Got a topic? Pop me off an email at: [email protected]

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Previous Episode

The Era Of The Lute & The Composer Who Made It Happen

Description
The lutenist Sylvius Leopold Weiss (1687 – 1750) was one of the most prolific composers of the lute in history and was the virtuoso lutenist of his day. He was a contemporary of J.S. Bach and even competed with him in improvisation. Take a minute to get the scoop!
Fun Fact
In later life, Weiss became a friend of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach and met J.S. Bach through him. Bach and Weiss were said to have competed in improvisation, as the following account by Johann Friedrich Reichardt describes: "Anyone who knows how difficult it is to play harmonic modulations and good counterpoint on the lute will be surprised and full of disbelief to hear from eyewitnesses that Weiss, the great lutenist, challenged J.S. Bach, the great harpsichordist and organist, at playing fantasies and fugues."
About Steven
Steven is a Canadian composer living in Toronto. He creates a range of works, with an emphasis on the short-form genre—his muse being to offer the listener both the darker and more satiric shades of human existence. If you're interested, please check out his website for more. Member of the Canadian League Of Composers.
A Note To Music Students et al.
All recordings and sheet music are available on my site. I encourage you to take a look and play through some. Give me a shout if you have any questions.
Got a topic? Pop me off an email at: [email protected]

Support the show

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Conversation with world-renowned Theremin Player Pamelia Stickney, & Alexander (Sasha) Rapoport, Composer (Bonus Episode)

Description
For this bonus interview episode, I chatted with world-renowned theremin player Pamelia Stickney (formerly known as Pamelia Kurstin). She has performed and recorded with many artists including David Byrne, Yoko Ono, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, David Garland, Seb Rochford, Otto Lechner and Simone Dinnerstein, and was instrumental in the final design of Robert Moog's Etherwave Pro Theremin, for which she was the primary test musician.
I was also joined by composer, Sasha Rapoport, who has written several works for the theremin, performed by his good friend Pamelia Stickney. Among other things, he chatted and played a clip from his 3rd Sonata, march and minuet. Sasha's principal compositions include works for Jamie Sommerville (Waldberauscht, 2016) Pamelia Stickney (Sonata for Theremin and Piano no. 1, 2014 and no. 2, 2018) The Talisker Players (And Hast Thou Glossed the Jabberwock? 2011, and The Pilgrimage of Henry Pyne, 2009), The Canadian Children’s Opera Company (Dragon in the Rocks, 2008), The Windermere Quartet (String Quartet no. 1, 2006 and no. 2, 2017), Valerie Tryon (Variations on a Theme of Chopin for Piano and Orchestra, 1999) and Judy Loman (Hymn to the Redeemer of the Nations, 1986). He is an associate professor, teaching stream, in composition and music theory at the University of Toronto.
Read about the documentary film: Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey
About Steven, Host
Steven is a Canadian composer living in Toronto. He creates a range of works, with an emphasis on the short-form genre—his muse being to offer the listener both the darker and more satiric shades of human existence. If you're interested, please check out his website for more. Member of the Canadian League Of Composers.
A Note To Music Students et al.
All recordings and sheet music are available on my site. I encourage you to take a look and play through some. Give me a shout if you have any questions.
Got a topic? Pop me off an email at: [email protected]

Support the show

The Classical Music Minute - Aaron Copland: The Dean of American Composers

Transcript

Aaron Copland was an American composer, teacher, writer, and later conductor.
Copland was referred to by his peers 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.
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 labelled his "