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Sender: American Memory Fellows <AMFELLOWS@SUN8.LOC.GOV>
Poster: "Elizabeth L. Brown" <ebro@LOC.GOV>
Subject: Aaron Copland Collection now in American Memory
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This announcement is being sent to a number of lists. Please accept our
apologies for any duplicate postings.
November 14, 2000, marks the one hundredth birthday of the American
musical icon Aaron Copland. The new online Aaron Copland Collection
<http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/achtml/> created by the National Digital
Library Program in conjunction with the Library=92s Music Division, forms
part of the Library of Congress=92s homage to this distinguished American.
Copland devoted his life as a composer to creating, fostering,
developing, and establishing a distinctive "American" music. He became
known as the "Dean of American Music," a sobriquet with which he was
uncomfortable. His name is synonymous with his compositions=20
Appalachian Spring=ADwhich won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize in Music=ADand=20
Fanfare for the Common Man.
The Aaron Copland Collection Web site includes approximately one
thousand items selected from Copland's correspondence, writings,
photographs, and complete sets of music sketches. These sketches
provide an overview of Copland=92s compositional process; he used=20
them in composing thirty-one works spanning the years 1924 to 1967=20
and covering every medium in which he composed: orchestral, ballet,=20
opera, film, chamber, solo-piano, and vocal music.
The eight hundred items of correspondence in the online collection
include Copland=92s letters to his parents and other family members=20
in the 1920s and =9130s, to his Parisian teacher Nadia Boulanger, to=20
the conductor Serge Koussevitzky, and to other notable figures in
twentieth-century music such as Nicolas Slonimsky, Roger Sessions,
Carlos Ch=E1vez, Walter Piston, Leonard Bernstein, and Benjamin=20
Britten. As an advocate and supporter of American music and=20
American composers, Copland frequently wrote articles, presented=20
lectures, and delivered speeches, and eighty-six of these are presented=20
online as previously unpublished drafts. They reveal the creative=20
process through which he wrote about his own music, other composers=20
and their music, and other people who played important roles in his=20
musical life. More than a hundred photographs are also represented=20
in the online collection, many created by Copland=92s friend Victor Kraft,=
=20
a professional photographer. They include portraits of Aaron Copland=20
at various ages and places, with family members, with other composers,=20
and with other people associated with his career as a composer and
conductor, as well as images from his worldwide travels.
The Aaron Copland Collection Web site also includes the following
Special Presentations: a time line of important events in Copland=92s
life, an essay on Copland=92s music by Library staff member and noted
American music scholar Wayne Shirley, and several previously=20
published articles on Copland=92s life and work. In the future, the=20
site will also include the revised finding aid for the complete=20
Aaron Copland Collection.
Copland extensively documented the many facets of his life in music.
The archival Aaron Copland Collection, housed in the Library=92s Music
Division, consists of approximately four hundred thousand items,=20
dating from 1910 to 1990 with a few nineteenth-century photographs,=20
and includes his music manuscripts, printed music, personal and=20
business correspondence, diaries and writings, photographic materials,=20
awards, honorary degrees, programs, and other biographical materials. =20
It is the primary resource for research on Aaron Copland and a major=20
resource for the study of musical life in twentieth-century America=20
generally, particularly from the 1920s to the 1960s.
Please direct any questions to ndlpcoll@loc.gov .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 15 2000 - 10:30:17 EST