Aaron Copland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990), was born in New York. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia. He had 2 brothers and two sisters all older than he. His parents owned a store in Brooklyn called H. M. Copland. They lived in the 3 stories above the family store, very modestly. Aaron was mostly watched after by his sisters, or one of several maids, as his parents were in their 40’s and busy with the store. He considered himself lucky since he was the baby of the family, fussed over and had a since of being on his own at an early age.
Aaron by the age of 8 started to make up or improvise tunes on the piano. By 12 he was notating those melodies. When Aaron was 13 his sister Laurine who had taught him piano at home, helped convince his parents to pay for piano lessons with Leopold Wolfsohn who had a studio nearby. Although Aaron’s father was not very agreeing with Aarons pursuit of music, with the help of his sister Laurine who was very devoted to Aaron. They were able to convince his parents to support is music career all the way to letting him go to Paris to study in the future (1921). About this time Aaron attempted an opera he named “Lola”. At age 16 he created the beginnings to a piece for piano called “Valse …show more content…
He was going to spend a year studying overseas including a summer semester at a conservancy in Fontainebleau that catered to Americans. He felt that the conservancy students were not very talented, he did however get to meet Nadia Boulanger. She was an exceptional woman of the times, she had Parisian education, studied organ and composition, and at the Paris Conservatory she performed better than the male students. She went into teaching as women were not excepted as equals in the music world in 1921. She did however still perform as a conductor and organist. She became the first women that conducted the London Royal Philharmonic and the New York Philharmonic, which are major