An Aaron Copland Timeline

NPR.org, November 9, 2004 - The important events in the composer's musical

career and personal life.
November 14, 1900: Born, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Early Life: Learned piano from his sister, studied with Leopold Wolfsohn, Victor
Wittgenstein, and Clarence Adler; attended New York-area concerts with regular
frequency.
1917: Studied harmony, counterpoint, and compositional forms with Karl
Goldmark, a well-known composer schooled in the German Romantic tradition.
1918: Graduated from Boy's High School.
1920: Went to Paris to live as an expatriot; studied with Nadia Boulanger through
1924; exposed to French composers (Ravel, Honeger, Roussel, Milhaud) in
Paris; summers spent in Germanic regions, exposed to Webern, Bartok, and
Hindemith.
1922-25: Wrote first large work, Grohg, a ballet influenced by French textures
and Stravinsky.
1924: Organ Symphony written, commisioned by Boulanger for her first tour of
America.
1925: Wrote music for the "Theatre" suite, a jazzy, syncopated attempt to create
a distinctly 'American' sound.
Other 1920s Events: Studied dramatic literature at the Sorbonne; taught
privately; received support from Boston Symphony Conductor Serge
Koussevitsky's patron, Alma Morgenthau Wertheim, the MacDowell Colony and
the Guggegheim Foundation; joined League of Composers and wrote for its
periodical, Modern Music.
1926: Piano Concerto is written
1927-1937: Taught at New School for Social Research. Lectures developed into
best-selling books (What to Listen for in Music, Our New Music).
1928: Wrote first significant chamber work, Vitebsk, a piano trio based on Hebraic
subject matter.
1928-1931: With composer Roger Sessions, sponsored the Copland-Sessions
Concerts, a series of new music performances in New York.
1930: Wrote the acclaimed Dance Symphony and Piano Variations.
1933-1944: Taught at Harvard in composer/theorist Walter Piston's absence.
1934: Wrote the ballet Hear ye! Hear ye!.
1936: An opera for children, The Second Hurricane, and the famed El Salón
México are written.
1938: Wrote the ballet Billy the Kid and An Outdoor Overture.
1939: Film Score for Of Mice and Men is written.
1940-1965: First compositional faculty member at Koussevitsky's Berkshire
Music Center, later to be called the Tanglewood Music Center; wrote film score to
Our Town (1940).
1941: Wrote his Piano Sonata and Quiet City.
1942: Wrote the ballet Rodeo and The Lincoln Portrait.
1943: Fanfare for the Common Man is published for brass and percussion.
1943: Violin Sonata is published.
1944: Wrote Appalachian Spring
1945: Won the Pulitzer Prize and the New York Critic's Circle Award.
1946: The Third Symphony, utilizing the Fanfare for a Common Man, is
composed.
1948: Wrote the Clarinet Concerto for virtuoso Benny Goodman, used by Jerome
Robbins in the ballet Pied Piper; wrote film score to The Red Pony.
1950: Won an Academy Award; published the Piano Quartet and a song cycle
based on the poems of Emily Dickinson.
1951: Became the first composer to be honored with the Norton Professor of
Poetics at Harvard; Norton lectures published as Music and Imagination.
1952: Old American Songs are written.
1954: Wrote a large-scale opera, The Tender Land.
1956: Won the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
1960: Wrote the Nonet for Stings.
1962: Wrote Connontations for the New York Philharmonic's 125th anniversary.
1964: Music for a Great City is finished.
1967: Inscape is written.
1971: Published Duo for Flute and Piano.
1972: Three Latin American Sketches are composed.
1984: First volume of memoirs are written, Copland: 1900 Through 1942, with the
help of Vivian Perlis.
1986: Wins the Congressional Medal of Honor and the National Medal of Arts.
1989: Writes second volume of memoirs, Copland: Since 1943, with Vivian Perlis.
1990 : Dies on December 2 in North Tarrytown, N.Y.; his ashes are scattered at
Tanglewood.