He lived at home, playing in dance bands to earn money. He never went to college, instead continuing composition lessons and experiencing New York’s rich cultural life: concerts, a subscription to the Met, the Ballet Russe, Isadora Duncan, and as much modern music as he could find. Formal piano lessons began in 1913, and real composition study started in 1917. But in Copland’s case the store was not a music store, but rather a department store.Ĭopland started playing piano when he was seven and making up music soon thereafter he was writing it down by age 12 at the latest. Copland was the youngest of five children in a not especially musical family that, like Elgar’s family, lived above their Brooklyn store. The Copland family name was originally Kaplan, changed to Copland in Scotland during the move to America. It is completely fitting that “American Music Month” is November, the month of his birth. But for those who honor the First Amendment to the Constitution, which enshrines freedom of religion in law, and for those who read the words on the Statue of Liberty (“Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”) and recognize that the United States is a nation of immigrants, Copland is a wonderful representative of America.
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This drives some people crazy, for Copland was the gay Jewish son of two emigrés from Russia-not exactly Puritan stock. More than anyone else, Aaron Copland is the quintessential American composer of serious music.