Student's take on Aaron Copland and Success - An Exemplar

    Aaron Copland

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Performing Artists

Aaron Copland  (1900-1990) was known as the leader of classical american music for over 50 years. He showed persistence, focus, practice, talent, and a cheerful attitude that won others over. Many of these talents are key to being a successful performing artist. A performing artist is someone who performs their own act for an audience. In this case a musical act, such as the many Aaron Copland performed.

A performing artist must have a sense of persistence and focus. Aaron Copland showed this in several ways. For example, he showed persistence when he begged his parents repeatedly for piano lessons. His mother and father had provided piano lessons for their older four children, but decided against it for Aaron. Eventually, however, they rewarded Aaron with lessons, too. He (Aaron) also showed focus by practicing and working hard to be submitted to Fontainbleau. Again, when he studied privately with Nadia Boulanger.

As a successful performing artist, Aaron Copland also had talent and showed it frequently. He composed music that originally showed America’s history and land. This is one of the main reasons he was credited the leader of classical american music. For example, he composed and played a piece of music called Lincoln Portrait. In this song, he used American stories and folk songs to capture America’s spirit.

Aaron Copland also had a cheerful and positive attitude. This showed in his peppy, powerful, proud and regal music. He won people over and helped everybody get along. He also gained appreciation by teaching many other young musicians. He also organized several performances in his life. Aaron Copland was a very successful performing artist. Aaron once quoted “To stop the flow of music would be like stopping time itself, incredible and inconceivable”. He wrote over 40 pieces, each of them amazing. One of his compositions, titled Billy The Kid  is conceived as peppy, cheerful, unpredictable, and complicated. His other pieces are confident, flawless, layer full, and powerful. He truly was a great person.

You could compare Aaron Copland’s success with Franz Schubert, another amazing composer and performing artist. Franz was considered the first of romantic compositions, and the last of the classical pieces. Born 1797 and died 1828, he created several works. As a young musician, he was forced to quit college because of money, and then got a job as an assistant at his father's school. Even then, he was interested in music. Franz was persistent and a hard worker, even though he was never rich. He had strained friendships and a tough life, then fell sick and died when he was about 30. Regardless of this, he was a very talented musician and is appreciated. Franz and Aaron are alike in some ways. They were both talented musicians and performing artists. They both showed persistence and focus. Both faced obstacles on their journey. They were both very talented musicians, composers, performing artists, and people.

As shown, Aaron Copland was a very successful performing artist. He showed many needed traits that performing artists have, including persistence and focus by gaining piano lessons and working hard. Also, talent by capturing America's spirit, plus a cheerful temperament. Being a performing artist required many things, but Aaron Copland was very successful and talented.