Aaron· Copland(1900～1990)
Aaron Copland was born on November 14, 1900 in New York City. His musical works ranged from ballet and orchestral music to choral music and movie scores. For the better part of four decades Aaron Copland was considered the premier American composer.
Copland learned to play piano from an older sister. By the time he was fifteen he had decided to become a composer. His first tentative steps included a correspondence course in writing harmony.
In 1921 Copland traveled to Paris to attend the newly founded music school for Americans at Fontainebleau. He was the first American student of the brilliant teacher, Nadia Boulanger. After three years in Paris he returned to New York with his first major commission, writing an organ concerto for the American appearances of Madame Boulanger. His "Symphony for Organ and Orchestra" premiered in at Carnegie Hall in 1925.
Copland's growth as a composer mirrored important trends of his time. After his return from Paris he worked with jazz rhythms in his "Piano Concerto" (1926). His "Piano Variations" (1930) was strongly influenced by Igor Stravinsky's Neoclassicism. In 1936 he changed his orientation toward a simpler style. He felt this made his music more meaningful to the large music-loving audience being created by radio and the movies.
His most important works during this period were based on American folk lore including "Billy the Kid" (1938) and "Rodeo" (1942). Other works during this period were a series of movie scores including "Of Mice and Men" (1938) and "The Heiress" (1948). In his later years Copland's work reflected the serial techniques of the so-called 12-tone school of Arnold Schoenberg. Notable among these was "Connotations" (1962) commissioned for the opening of Lincoln Center.
After 1970 Copland stopped composing, though he continued to lecture and conduct through the mid-1980s. He died on December 2, 1990 at the Phelps Memorial Hospital in Tarrytown (Westchester County), New York.
名言：Inspiration may be a form of super-consciousness, or perhaps of sub consciousness—I wouldn't know. But I am sure it is the antithesis of self-consciousness.
Key words: musician educator
艾伦.科普兰(1900～1990)美国作曲家、指挥家、钢琴家、演讲家、作家等。1900 年生于布鲁克林。13 岁开始学习钢琴，中学毕业后，随戈德马克学习对位与和声，1921 年在巴黎枫丹白露音乐学校，从布朗热学作曲。1924 年回国，后任教于多所音乐院校。1935～1944年受聘于哈佛大学。
科普兰一生致力于提倡美国音乐，他的讲学、创作活动、社会活动始终以此为宗旨和目的。
他的创作风格的变化实是当时各种音乐流派存在的一种写照，反映了音乐发展的状况。早期作品乐队组曲《剧场音乐》(1925)有爵士乐因素，是对民族风格的初试;《钢琴变奏曲》(1930)、《短交响曲》(1933)即为新古典主义影响的结果;1935 年以后，进入创作旺盛阶段，写下了一系列能被听众广泛接受的民族音乐，如舞剧音乐《小伙子比利》(1938)、《牧区竞技》(1942)、《阿巴拉契亚之春》(1944)、管弦乐曲《墨西哥沙龙》(1936)、《林肯肖像》(朗诵与乐队，1942)等，奠定了他为美国学派代表人物的地位;晚期创作中还采用了十二音技法。
70 年代以后很少创作。此外，科普兰对美国的普及音乐教育、发展美国现代音乐事业做出了极大贡献。
