Aaron Copland

Aaron Copland (November 14 1900 – December 2 1990) was an American composer of concert and film music, as well as an accomplished pianist. Instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, he was widely known as “the dean of American composers.” Copland's music achieved a difficult balance between modern music and American folk styles, and the open, slowly changing harmonies of many of his works are said to evoke the vast American landscape. He incorporated percussive orchestration, changing meter, polyrhythm, polychord and tone row. Aside from composing, Copland taught, presented music-related lectures, wrote books and articles, and served as a conductor (generally, but not always) of his own works. Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Lithuanian Jewish descent. Before immigrating to the United States from Scotland, Copland's father Anglicized his surname “Kaplan” to “Copland”. Throughout his childhood, Copland and his family lived above his parents'... full article at wikipedia