Aaron Copland was an American composer of film and concert music. He was also a talented pianist, teacher, author and conductor. He was born on November 14, 1900 to Jewish Lithuaniun parents in Brooklyn New Jersey. His family name had originally been Kaplan before his father angilised it to Copland before emigrating to the United States. Although never formally introducted to music by his parents Copland displayed a keen interest in music and at the age of 15 expressed a desire to become a conductor. He attended the Fontainbleau School Of Music, Paris in 1921 and statyed there for 3 years until 1924.

After leaving Fontainbleau, Copland set out to compose music that was uniquely "American in character" and set about composing his first major work, the ballet "Grohg" in 1925. In the same year Copland also composed the symphony "Organ and Orchestra". At this time Copland gained a Guggenheim in Fellowship which provided him with the financial independence that allowed him to continue with his composition. It also allowed him to found the "Young Composers Group" which encouraged and supported youthful composers. Copland's early works were followed by "Music for Theater" (1925), The Piano Variations (1930) and the Short Symphony (1933), together these works combined into Copland early period of jazz inspired intellectual oriented compositions.

Becoming disillusioned with producing music for the intellectual minority, Copland decided to produce music for a wider audience and so wrote "El Salón México" (1936) which became Coplands first really popular work. Following on from the successes of "El Salón México" Copland produced his most famous work, "Fanfare for the Common Man" in 1942 for Eugene Goossens, the conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. The "Fanfare for the Common Man" became synonomoius with the opening of Democratic National Conventions in future years. The same year Copland also composed "A Lincoln Portrait", and the ballet "Rodeo" which cemented Coplands place in popular culture.

2 years later Copland composed the music for the ballet "Appalachian Spring", which was commissioned by Martha Graham. Graham did not have any subject matter for the ballet before commissioning the work from Copland, giving him the brief "Music for an American Ballet", for the work. As such Copland composed the ballet with no knowledge of what it would be used for and gave it the working title "Music for Martha". After the music was compleated by Copland, Graham based the ballet around the story of a Hart Crane poem called "Appalachian Spring". The ballet was a smash hit and also won Copland a Pulizer Prize in compositon. Copland was often amused in later life when people told him that his music sounded exactly like Spring in the Appalachians even though he had no knowledge of the subject when it was created.

In the late 30's and during the 40's Copland began to enter a new and exciting genre in music composition, Hollywood. Copland worked with Hollywood director Lewis Milestone, who gave Copland the control and independance to create the soundtrack for the film "Of Mice and Men" (1939). This became Coplands first academy award nomination, which was followed by 3 more ,"Our Town" (1940), "The North Star" (1943), and "The Heiress" (1949) for which he finally won the Best Music academy award.

In 1953 Copland was brought before Congress for questioning on his Communist leanings during what was known as the "Red Scare". Copland had spoken out in favour of the Communist Party during the presidential election in 1936. The accusation caused outrage in the musical community and "The Lincoln Portrait" was removed from President Eisenhowers inauguration concert. Copland denied ever being a communist and nothing to the contrary was ever proven by the investigation which ceased 2 years later in 1955.

The allegations did not hinder Copland in later years as he continued to compose, conduct and travel the world experiencing and experimenting with different types and styles of music. As Copland grew older he composed less and less for want of inspiration commenting “It was exactly as if someone had simply turned off a faucet.” He continued to tour and conduct extensively throughout the world. Copland died on December 2, 1990 in North Tarrytown, New York suffering from respiratory failure and Alzheimer's disease.