With a thorough grounding in composition and orchestration under his belt, he returned to America where he became involved in a wide range of musical activities, working as a pianist in a hotel, as a lecturer and as an organiser of various musical societies, as well as composing.Ĭonductor, publisher and patron of music Serge Koussevitzky became an influential champion of his music throughout his tenure as conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, an incalculable boost to Copland’s growing reputation.
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Here, during his four years at the New School for Americans at Fontainebleau (1921-25), Copland was introduced to an enormous range of musical influences, all of which he was encouraged to absorb: jazz, the neo-classicism of Stravinsky and the whimsicality of Les Six made a particularly strong impression on him and colour the first period of his mature compositions. He was able to scrape together enough to go to Paris to study with the doyenne of European teachers, Nadia Boulanger. His first published piece, The Cat and the Mouse, appeared in 1920.
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The piano came easily to him and, after he’d graduated from the local high school, he had lessons in harmony and counterpoint from the eminent (though conservative) teacher and composer Rubin Goldmark.
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Born in a humble street in Brooklyn, the son of Lithuanian immigrants, Copland is generally regarded as the first indisputably great American composer.