Conductor, Stanford Robinson
Aaron Copland , one of the foremost American composers of today, was bom at Brooklyn in 1900. He studied music with a nephew of Goldmark, the opera composer, and in 1921 was the first to enrol in the newly-established music school for Americans at Fontainebleau. ' Appalachian Spring ' is a ballet written for Martha Graham , the well-known American dancer, and first performed by her company at Washington in 1944. In the following year it received the Pulitzer Prize for music as well as the award of the Music Critics Circle of New York for the outstanding theatrical work of the season. The scene of the ballet is western Pennsylvania at the beginning of the last century, and the scenario deals with a young couple who are about to build their home in the hills. Other characters are the preacher who marries them, and a revivalist. Originally written for a small orchestra of thirteen instruments, ' ‘Appalachian Spring ' has been condensed for concert performance and re-scored for a symphonv orchestra hv the composer.
Harold Rutland