Aaron Copland

Sound

November 14, 1900 (90 years)

† December 2, 1990

Brooklyn, New York

Biography

Aaron Copland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics 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 and pioneer spirit. He is best known for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1…

Filmography

6.7

He Got Game

A basketball player's father must try to convince him to go to a college so he can get a shorter prison sentence.

7.8

The Heiress

In 1840s New York, the uneventful and boring days of the daughter of a wealthy doctor come to an end when she meets a dashing poorer man — who may or may not be after her inheritance.

7.3

Of Mice and Men

An intellectually disabled giant and his level headed guardian find work at a sadistic cowboy's ranch in depression era America.

5.9

Our Town

Change comes slowly to a small New Hampshire town in the early 20th century. We see birth, life and death in this small community.

6.0

The North Star

A Ukrainian village must suddenly contend with the Nazi invasion of June 1941. Later re-edited and released as "Armored Attack."

6.2

Something Wild

A young rape victim tries desperately to pick up the pieces of her life, only to find herself at the mercy of a would-be rescuer.

N/A

A Letter to Jonathan

A film with very little dialogue. Set in the Catskills of 1896 – 1916, a farmer buries his deceased wife atop a nearby mountain, then makes the difficult decision to give up his newborn son, Jonathan. Later in 1916, Jonathan returns to confront his past. The only real dialogue is a voice over of the father reading a letter he wrote to his son explaining himself.

6.1

The Red Pony

Peter Miles stars as Tom Tiflin, the little boy at the heart of this John Steinbeck story set in Salinas Valley. With his incompatible parents -- the city-loving Fred and country-happy Alice -- constantly bickering, Tom looks to cowboy Billy Buck for companionship and paternal love.

6.0

The City

A prescient documentary about city planning, which presents idyllic suburbs and nuclear families as a solution to the chaos, poverty and social decay of industrialized inner cities.

5.3

Appalachian Spring

A filmed version of Aaron Copland's most famous ballet, with its original star, who also choreographed.

8.2

The Opera House

In this documentary, award-winning filmmaker Susan Froemke explores the creation of the Metropolitan Opera’s storied home of the last five decades. Drawing on rarely seen archival footage, stills, and recent interviews, The Opera House looks at an important period of the Met’s history and delves into some of the untold stories of the artists, architects, and politicians who shaped the cultural life of New York City in the ’50s and ’60s. Among the notable figures in the film are famed soprano Leontyne Price, who opened the new Met in 1966 in Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra; Rudolf Bing, the Met’s imperious General Manager who engineered the move from the old house to the new one; Robert Moses, the unstoppable city planner who bulldozed an entire neighborhood to make room for Lincoln Center; and Wallace Harrison, whose quest for architectural glory was never fully realized.

8.0

The Cummington Story

Produced by the U.S. Office of War Information, this short dramatizes the uneasy but ultimately hopeful integration of European war refugees into the small town of Cummington, Massachusetts. Narrated over silent images with a score by Aaron Copland, it blends documentary style and propaganda, underscoring both cultural tension and community acceptance.

N/A

Zahia Ziouani & Mourad Merzouki : Les Nouveaux Mondes

Led by the conductor Zahia Ziouani and the choreographer Mourad Merzouki, a humanist concert combining classical music, contemporary creation, dance and world traditions.

N/A

Concerto diretto da John Axelrod

From the Rai Arturo Toscanini Auditorium in Turin: Johann Sebastian Bach – Anton Webern: Fugue (Ricercata) for 6 voices from *The Musical Offering* BWV 1079 – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Concerto in A major K. 622 for clarinet and orchestra – Aaron Copland: Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra – Igor Stravinsky. Conductor: John Axelrod.

7.0

Abstronic

A pioneer of visual music and electronic art, Mary Ellen Bute produced over a dozen short abstract animations between the 1930s and the 1950s. Set to classical music by the likes of Bach, Saint-Saëns, and Shoshtakovich, and replete with rapidly mutating geometries, Bute’s filmmaking is at once formally rigorous and energetically high-spirited, like a marriage of high modernism and Merrie Melodies. In the late 1940s, Lewis Jacobs observed that Bute’s films were “composed upon mathematical formulae depicting in ever-changing lights and shadows, growing lines and forms, deepening colors and tones, the tumbling, racing impressions evoked by the musical accompaniment.” Bute herself wrote that she sought to “bring to the eyes a combination of visual forms unfolding along with the thematic development and rhythmic cadences of music.”

N/A

Copland, Bernstein

From the Giovanni Agnelli Auditorium in Turin: Aaron Copland, Danzon Cubano; Heitor Villa-Lobos, Bachianas brasileiras No. 2; Leonard Bernstein, West Side Story symphonic dances. Conductor John Neschling. RAI National Symphony Orchestra.

N/A

International ARD Music Competition 2025 Prize Winners' Concert

At the close of the 74th ARD International Music Competition, the best clarinetists, trumpeters, and pianists perform at the winners' concert. They are accompanied by one of the world's most renowned ensembles: the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sasha Scolnik-Brower.

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