Aaron Copland’s Works for Dance

Dr. Frederick “Fred” Umar is a music composer, arranger, and educator whose diverse body of work has received awards and been written about across his professional career. One of Dr. Fred Umar’s awards came from the Aaron Copland Trust, which awarded him transcription rights to the 20th century American composer’s piece “Dance Symphony.”

One of the unique aspects of Copeland’s career is the large volume of music he created for dance productions. This began in 1935 with a commission for a ballet score, “Hear Ye! Hear Ye!,” from choreographer Ruth Page. While this Rashomon-like production, set in a court of law, found only limited success, it did lead to a higher profile commission from the Ballet Caravan in New York. This was 1938’s “Billy the Kid,” a seminal work that incorporated numerous folk and cowboy song motifs and planted Copeland’s image firmly in the American West.

This Western thread continued in the 1942 ballet score, “Rodeo.” Composed for choreographer Agnes De Mille, it featured a fiddle tune borrowed from John and Alan Lomax’s field recordings for the Library of Congress. Copland’s culminating ballet score was 1944’s “Appalachian Spring,” which was created for a Martha Graham production that was initially performed at the Library of Congress. This would be Copeland’s last dance score until the late 1950s, when he created “Dance Panels” for an abstract production.