Aaron Copland

Copland, Aaron (1900–90), U.S. composer. His lyrical and exuberant music incorporates jazz and folk tunes in a distinctively American idiom. His works include the ballet scores Billy the Kid (1938) and Appalachian Spring (1944), the song cycle Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson (1950), the opera The Tender Land (1954), symphonies, piano and chamber works, and film scores. His many awards include the 1945 Pulitzer Prize and Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964.