Aaron Copland

Award won Role or nomination

1. 1900 age 0

   Born

2. 1949 age 49

   CreditThe Heiresscomposer

3. 1990 age 90

   Died

• OHOlivia de Havilland1 title
• RCRay Collins1 title
• WWWilliam Wyler1 title
• EHEdith Head1 title
• WHWilliam Hornbeck1 title
• RRRalph Richardson1 title
• MCMontgomery Clift1 title
• MFMona Freeman1 title
• LLLouise Lorimer1 title
• VBVanessa Brown1 title

• The composer who is frightened of losing his artistic integrity through contact with a mass audience is no longer aware of the meaning of the word art.

  Aaron Copland, CC BY-SA 4.0

• For me, the most important thing is the element of chance that is built into a live performance. The very great drawback of recorded sound is the fact that it is always the same. No matter how wonderful a recording is, I know that I couldn't live with it--even of my own music--with the same nuances forever.

  Aaron Copland, CC BY-SA 4.0

• I hope my recordings of my own works won't inhibit other people's performances. The brutal fact is that one doesn't always get the exact tempo one wants, although one improves with experience.

  Aaron Copland, CC BY-SA 4.0

• If the listener does eventually come to the point where he makes the ultimate performance by splicing tapes from other musicians' recordings, he will eventually become just as bored with it as with other recordings, for it will still always be the same. Look, for instance, at electronic music. The boys are already becoming bored with what they do because they put it irrevocably on tape. The best indication of this is that more and more they are mixing the live performance element with their tapes.

  Aaron Copland, CC BY-SA 4.0

• I object to background music no matter how good it is. Composers want people to listen to their music, they don't want them doing something else while their music is on. I'd like to get the guy who sold all those big businessmen the idea of putting music in the elevators, for he was really clever. What on earth good does it do anybody to hear those four or eight bars while going up a few flights.

  Aaron Copland, CC BY-SA 4.0

• I adore extravagance but I abhor waste.

  Aaron Copland, CC BY-SA 4.0