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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07/11/22 • 1 min

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 "

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