Aaron Copeland (1900 - 1990)

What better person to recognize on World Music Day than composer/conductor/teacher/writer Aaron Copeland. Having created an instinctively identifiable American sound that evokes the pioneer spirit and landscape of this country, Copeland became one of the most influential 20th-century composers. Determined not to repeat himself, he wrote distinctively optimistic pieces in a variety of genres - from the trumpet blasts of Fanfare for the Common Man to the Wild West hoedowns of Billy the Kid and Rodeo; from the opera, The Tender Land to the film scores to the Red Pony, Our Town and Of Mice and Men. His Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork, Appalachian Spring, gave new life and meaning to the Shaker hymn, “Simple Gifts,” while A Lincoln Portrait melded the words of the president with soaring melodies. Copeland will forever be associated with Tanglewood, the home of summer music in the Berkshires, where he served for 25 years as teacher, conductor, and mentor to many, including his protégé, Leonard Bernstein. Copeland was a private man who lived openly as a gay man but, like many of his generation, did not talk about his sexuality. His legacy includes the Aaron Copland Fund for Composers, which annually bestows over $500,000 in grants, and the Aaron Copeland Circle at Tanglewood, where his ashes were scattered and where there is a bronze bust in his honor.