Aaron Copland: Music born from the streets of Brooklyn

At the end of the 19th century, Brooklyn neighborhoods rang the musical diversity of throngs of immigrants. Many came from Eastern Europe, where Jewish discrimination was rampant; this was the case for the Copland family.

On Nov. 14, 1900, Aaron — “exalted” in Hebrew — Copland was born. He came to be known as the “Dean of American Music.”

From childhood, Copland’s course was set. His youthful compositions, which directed his nation’s staid classical tradition in a fresh direction, were distilled with synagogue music, Yiddish theater, Russian folk and Klezmer.

As Copland’s output matured, an identifiable style emerged. At its core, his art possessed a nobility aspiring toward “the better angels of our nature,” to quote the man he honored in 1942 with “Lincoln Portrait.”

Maestro Michael