Where could Aaron Coplands music be heard?

Answer 1

Just about everywhere in the U.S. Aaron Copland is one of America's most popular classical composers, judging by the continued popularity of his music.

His Fanfare for the Common Man has been played at sporting events and in sports broadcasting for decades (especially in the 1970s Emerson, Lake & Palmer art-rock version), and figures prominently at political events on both sides of the aisle (Obama's 2009 Inaugural Concert at the Lincoln Memorial, Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally at the Capitol mall). It was also featured in the soundtrack of Saving Private Ryan. The final variation on the Shaker hymn tune "Simple gifts," from Appalachian Spring, seems to be especially emblematic of U.S. national pride, and used to be played behind a visual of a waving U.S. flag as the sign-off for some TV stations.

Copland's music has also been used in commercials: the "Hoedown" section of his Rodeo is archetypical Western/cowboy music, used in the background of the 1990s ad campaign, "Beef. It's what's for dinner," and the cut from Appalachian Spring mentioned previously accompanied the 1996 TV ad campaign introducing Oldsmobile's Aurora, which was heralded as the return of the unabashedly big American car.

Copland himself was known to branch out into non-traditional venues for Classical Music. He wrote on commission for radio orchestras during the live-studio era, and was a film composer as well. His scores for Our Town (1939) and Of Mice and Men (1940) are particularly notable, and he won an Oscar for his score of The Heiress (1949). Two of his popular ballets, Billy the Kid and Rodeo, were even adapted for TV on the 1952-53 Omnibus program.

Finally, you might also consider the impact of Copland on other composers. His "Western" sound in Billy the Kid and Rodeo turns up in classic Western-movie scores such as The Magnificent Seven and TV themes such as The Big Valley. The "wide open spaces" sound of Fanfare for the Common Man can be heard in the trumpet fanfare intros of such space-themed fare as the original Star Trek series, Superman (1978), and especially Apollo 13, which also references the "national pride" trope that grew out of Appalachian Spring.