The Aaron Copland Centennial

Timeline

November 14, 1900 -- Born, Brooklyn, New York

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 initial tour of America

1925 -- Wrote Music for the Theatre suite, a jazzy, syncopated attempt to create a distinctly 'American' sound

Other 1920's 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 Modern Music, its periodical

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, and 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 - the other

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 'Oscar' from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; published the Piano Quartet and an important cycle of 12 songs based on the poems of Emily Dickinson

1951 -- Became Norton Professor of Poetics at Harvard, an annual honor bestowed for the first time to a composer; 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 N.Y. Philharmonic's 125th year

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, December 2 in North Tarrytown, NY; his ashes are scattered at Tanglewood