Aaron Copland has always been one of my personal musical heroes. Mr. Copland cannot be considered one of the major contributors to American music because Aaron Copland IS American music. His influence on two generations of composers in North America (and worldwide) is considerable and the Coplandisms depicting "Americana" he created in his beloved ballet scores and in his globally famous Fanfare For The Common Man are still heard today in film and television music (even in TV commercials!). Biographical information on Copland is readily available from other sources (see links) so I will not address this on Fanfare For Aaron Copland. We will instead deal with the glorious music composed by Mr. Copland throughout his lengthy career. A systematic survey of Copland's complete oeuvre will not be conducted but a generous cross-section of his work will be posted. These will include orchestral, chamber, and vocal/choral pieces (many lesser-known compositions will be included). Ocassionally we will hear the same piece in different instrumentation. Sometimes we will feature the same piece interpreted by two different orchestras/conductors.
I hope this site will raise awareness of Aaron Copland's titanic contribution to his field and to the cultural history of the 20th century United States. All postings on this site will be in the lossless FLAC format and will be ripped from original CD's in my personal collection. All artwork included with the CD packaging will be added as image scans, now all done at 300DPI.
