biography
pronunciation:
[kohpland]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1900–90)
|
| biography:
| Composer, born in New York City, New York, USA. He studied in New York with Rubin Goldmark and in France (1921–4) with the later-famous pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. Back in New York, he began the wide-ranging activities that would characterize his career: painstaking composition, piano performer, promotion of new music, and teaching. His first successes came from performances of his works by such noted conductors as Walter Damrosch, who premiered the Symphony for Organ and Orchestra (1925), and Serge Koussevitsky, who became a leading champion of the composer. He created and performed new works which he presented in forums, including the Yaddo Festival (founded 1932). He also helped found organizations including the American Composers Alliance and Cos Cob Press, taught at schools including Tanglewood (1940–65), and wrote a series of books beginning with What to Listen for in Music (1939). After his early jazz-inspired works, including Music for the Theater (1925), and a few severe avant-garde pieces, such as the Piano Variations (1930), his best-known works began with the El Salón México (1936). This work and later pieces, among them the much-loved Appalachian Spring (1944), are marked by a warm and rhythmically lively style based on a sophisticated adaptation of American folk material. He largely retired from composing in the 1970s. |
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