Music from Copland House

Fresh from its triumphant Kennedy Center debut, hailed as “historic,” “stellar,” and “an incomparable musical experience” (Broadway World), MUSIC FROM COPLAND HOUSE (MCH) is the internationally-acclaimed touring, resident ensemble based at Aaron Copland’s National Historic Landmark home, an award-winning creative center for American music. The ensemble’s exhilarating concerts celebrate classic and forgotten voices from the nation’s past, revel in established and rising artists from the present, and create memorable and richly diverse narratives in sound, linking music to the wider world. Praised by The New York Times for “all the richness of its offerings” and “illuminating essential truths about the music,” MCH occupies a special place as the only wide-ranging American repertory ensemble journeying across 150 years of the U.S. musical landscape.

“One of the leading champions of contemporary music” (Louisville Weekly). MCH has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, National Public Radio, the European Broadcasting Union, and many other global media outlets, and has been engaged by Tanglewood, the Kennedy Center, Library of Congress, Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, Miller Theatre, Smithsonian Institution, Brandeis and Yale Universities, the Universities of Chicago, Louisville, Buffalo, Vermont, and South Carolina, the Caramoor, Bowdoin, Cape Cod, Bard, SONiC, and Ecstatic Music Festivals, and many other leading venues. The ensemble is also featured on its two popular mainstage series in Westchester County, NY (now in its 12th season) and at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (2nd season).

“Even when Copland is not on the bill, his spirit guides the programming” (The New York Times). MCH’s vibrant concerts have explored the literary voices of Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Toni Morrison, and Billy Collins; journeyed into the jazz clubs of Harlem, the churches of the South, and the fields of the American heartland; and traveled widely to Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East. The ensemble’s active repertoire includes nearly 350 works by over 150 American composers, reaching back deep into the 19th-century and forward to newly-created pieces. It has commissioned over 80 compositions, including Sebastian Currier’s Static (winner of the highly-coveted Grawemeyer Award), and the rapturously-received, full-length epic by Richard Danielpour and Rita Dove, A Standing Witness, featuring the incomparable mezzo Susan Graham. Following widely-praised CDs on Arabesque (the first complete cycle of Copland’s chamber music) and Koch International (devoted, respectively, to music by Currier and John Musto), the ensemble has a growing discography on the Copland House Blend label, which includes recent or forthcoming recordings of chamber works by Pierre Jalbert, Kevin Puts, Robert Xavier Rodriguez, William Albright, and Richard Danielpour, as well as an anthology of 125 years of African-American art songs, hymns, and spirituals.

Inspired by Copland’s peerless, lifelong advocacy of American composers, MCH also offers children’s and family programming, residencies, mentoring programs, and other educational and community outreach activities, and is the recipient of the Yale Distinguished Music Educator Award.

Launched in 1999 by flutist Paul Lustig Dunkel, clarinetist Derek Bermel, violinist Nicholas Kitchen, cellist Wilhelmina Smith, and pianist Michael Boriskin, MCH concerts feature its exceptional roster of Founding, Principal, and Guest Artists. The ensemble’s program-driven size and configuration typically range from 2 to 13 instrumentalists; “Copland,” raved The Chicago Tribune, “would have been proud of all of them.”

MUSIC FROM COPLAND HOUSE is the internationally-acclaimed, touring resident ensemble based at Aaron Copland’s National Historic Landmark home near New York City (www.coplandhouse.org), an award-winning creative center for American music. Hailed as “bold, adventurous, and superb” (The New Yorker) and for “illuminating essential truths about the music” (The New York Times), MCH occupies a special place as the only wide-ranging American repertory ensemble journeying widely across 150 years of the U.S. musical landscape. Drawing from an active repertory of 300 works by over 100 American composers, reaching back into the 19th century and forward to newly-created pieces, MCH’s musical adventures embrace Harlem jazz clubs, Southern churches, urban soundscapes, the majesty of the heartland and the American West, the sounds of Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East, and the literary voices of Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Billy Collins. The ensemble has been engaged by Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, Miller Theatre, Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles, Merkin Hall, the Bard, Cape Cod, Caramoor, Ecstatic, and Sonic Music Festivals, and many other leading North American presenters, and collaborated with NPR and Euro-Radio on a special concert of American music aired in over 20 countries. MCH records for Arabesque, Koch International, and COPLAND HOUSE BLEND, and is regularly featured on its popular main-stage series in Westchester and has recently launched an ambitious, ongoing new series at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (telecast by CUNY-TV) in New York City.