His early works, such as his piano concerto 1926, were in the jazz idiom but he gradually developed a gentler style with a regional flavour drawn from American folk music. Among his works are the ballets Billy the Kid 1939, Rodeo 1942, and Appalachian Spring 1944 (based on a poem by Hart Crane), and Inscape for Orchestra 1967. Born in New York, Copland studied in France with Nadia Boulanger, and taught from 1940 at the Berkshire Music Center, now the Tanglewood Music Center, near Lenox, Massachusetts. He took avant-garde European styles and gave them a distinctive American accent. His eight film scores, including The Heiress 1949, set new standards for Hollywood.
