Aaron Copland

He theorised that music was a very abstract art, and that music is a language that expresses emotion constantly. Copland said that composers don’t consciously know what expressions they are conveying in their works until played or sung back to themselves, this subconscious expression being the abstract aspect of composition. When considering female composers Copland said: “There have been great women singers, pianists, violinists, who interpret marvelously well, but for some reason or other…

they can edit the sound of the instrument/singer by changing its volume, tempo, pitch, tone, speed and even cut the entire instrument. Also, with a new “instrument” called the Some of the most popular film composer’s were/ are Aaron Copland and John Williams. Aaron Copland was the first in a generation of amazing Hollywood US Film Composers. After him, there weren’t any more orchestras in the cinema! He wasn’t the first film composer… but he was one of the best! John Williams is also a film…

In 1920, Copland sold his piano solo The Cat and the Mouse to Durand and Sons, the most respected music publisher in France. A depiction of Jean de la Fontaine’s fable “The Old Cat and the Young Mouse,” Copland’s The Cat and the Mouse uses running passages and technical rhythms to illustrate a typical housecat’s mouse-hunt. However, some maintain that the piece is related to a more sinister viewpoint of life and death. Howard Pollack may have said it best in his book Aaron Copland: The Life &…

The author Aaron Copland, in his article How We Listen To Music states that “My own belief is that all music has an expressive power, some more and some less, but that all music has a certain meaning behind the notes and that meaning behind the notes constitutes, after all, what the piece is saying, what the piece is about”. What Aaron Copland is stating is that he believes that music has meaning. Music can be a medium for the…

“Aaron Copland is an american-award winning composer, Author, Conductor, Lecturer, and Educator”. Some of his most famous works have been Of Mice and Men, The Heiress, and Something Wild. Another very well known composer of today’s film music is John Williams…

I attended the American Landscapes performed by Oklahoma State University Symphony Orchestra and Dr. Thomas Dickey conducted the orchestra. The concert was held at the Serentean Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, Oklahoma. At the concert, I was an amateur, listener to this type of music. I had never witnessed a live performance of this musical style before. I would consider myself to be a passive listener. I listened to the performance with…

Leonard Bernstein was a famous American composer with a Jewish heritage. He was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, studied at Harvard and later at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1943, he was employed as assistant conductor at the New York Philharmonic. He gained popularity after filling in for Bruno Walter, a German conductor, at Carnegie Hall. Two year later, he became the Music Director of the New York City Symphony Orchestra. Bernstein later taught music at Brandeis University. In 1958, he…

of pop tunes. Some musicians and jazz fans also know him as a major composer--arranger. In fact, there are musicologists and journalists who consider Ellington to be America's greatest composer, which puts him in a league with Charles Ives and Aaron Copland. Though many jazz fans think of Ellington as a pianist too, few scholars have examined how unique and original his approach to the keyboard really was. Dr. Matthew J. Cooper of Eastern Oregon University wrote that "Ellington surely stands as…

Alberto Evaristo Ginastera was a Latin American composer from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was born on April 11, 1916 in Buenos Aires and died June 25, 1983 at the age of 67 in Geneva Switzerland. He was half Catalan and half Italian. Ginastera started his composing career when he was only 18 years old and won first place in a contest for the piano. He studied music at the Conservatorio Williams and the National Conservatory, both in Buenos Aires. Ginastera later co-founded the League of…

1945 brought the end of the second world war in which ended the lives of nearly 60 million people. This war had led to changes in the economy, politics, geography and country relations and had also changed people’s sentiments and thoughts. This partly also one reason due to which many 21st century composers changed their approach towards composing music. One example of a composer who changed his attitude to composing music was Alberto Ginastera, an Argentine composer who changed his style of…