A Gay Man Ahead Of His Time: Iconic American Composer Aaron Copland, Born Today
On this day, November 14, 1900, Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn, New York, of Lithuanian Jewish descent. He is best known for the music he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s. Copland’s work includes favorites like the music for the ballets Billy the Kid, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring, which includes musical references to “Simple Gifts.”
https://youtube.com/watch?v=XiLTwtuBi-o%3Fversion%3D3%26hl%3Den_US
“Simple Gifts“ is a Shaker song written and composed in 1848 by Elder Joseph Brackett. Because of the thematic quality of Copland’s subject matter, his music is considered appropriate to events that are trying to focus on American culture.
Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” is often heard on state occasions such as the Funeral for President Gerald R. Ford, on January 2, 2007.  On August 28, 2010, it was played at the beginning of Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally, and on January 12, 2011 the piece opened “Together We Thrive: Tucson and America”, the memorial service for the victims of the 2011 Tucson shooting following the
attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords and the murder of six others. And on July 19, 2011, “Fanfare for the Common Man” was played as the wake-up music for the shuttle crew on the final mission for the Space Shuttle Atlantis and the final overall shuttle mission.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=cr6CnG5dmvM%3Fversion%3D3%26hl%3Den_US
As I wrote last month in “Values Voters Summit: My Yom Kippur War,”
On a weekend filled with irony, much of which was apparently lost on its sponsors as well as the attendees; a weekend when vitriol was cheered and pleas for civility and respect were met with derision; the presentation of the colors was accompanied by a stirring rendition of “Fanfare for the Common Man.â€
Copland was never troubled by his sexual orientation and although he never made the political statement of coming out publically, he was quite open about it – his being gay was not a secret. As part of a group of Manhattan-​based gay composers, Copeland, along with Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein, Marc Blitzstein, Paul Bowles, David Diamond, Ned Rorem and Virgil Thomson, changed the complexion of American Music.â€
Bo Young, at GayHistory.org, writes,
“Throughout his childhood Copland and his family lived above his parents’ Brooklyn shop. Although his parents never encouraged or directly exposed him to music, at the age of fifteen he had already taken an interest in the subject and aspired to be a composer. His
musical education included time with Leonard Wolfsohn, Rubin Goldmark (who also taught George Gershwin), and Nadia Boulanger at the Fontainebleau School of Music in Paris from 1921 to 1924. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1925 and again in 1926.Copland defended the Communist Party USA during the 1936 presidential election. As a result he was later investigated by the FBI during the Red scare of the 1950s, and found himself blacklisted. Because of the political climate of that era, “A Lincoln Portrait†was withdrawn from the 1953 inaugural concert for President Eisenhower. That same year, Copand was called before Congress where he testified that he was never a communist. Outraged by the accusations, many members of the musical community held up Copland’s music as a banner of his patriotism. The investigations ceased in 1955 and were closed in 1975. Copland was never shown to have been a member of the Communist Party. Only a decade later, in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Copland the Medal of Freedom for his contributions to American culture.
Copland’s sexuality was documented in Howard Pollack’s biography, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of An Uncommon Man. Unlike many gay men of his age, Copland was neither ashamed of nor tortured by his sexuality. He apparently understood and accepted it from an early age, and throughout his life was involved in relationships with other men. In later years, his affairs were mostly with younger men, usually musicians or artists, whom he mentored, including composer Leonard Bernstein, dancer and artist Erik Johns (who wrote the libretto for The Tender Land) photographer Victor Kraft, and music critic Paul Moor.
Given the social prejudices of the times in which he lived, Copland was relatively open about his sexuality, yet this seems not to have interfered with the acceptance of his music or with his status as a cultural figure. The likely explanation is that Copland conducted his personal life with the characteristic modesty, tactfulness, and serenity that marked his professional life as well.
Copland died of Alzheimer’s and respiratory failure in North Tarrytown, NY (now Sleepy Hollow), on December 2, 1990.â€
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Stuart Wilber. Photo by Mathew Ryan Williams
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Stuart Wilber believes that living life openly as a Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender or Allied person is the most powerful kind of activism. Shortly after meeting his partner in Chicago in 1977, he opened a gallery named In a Plain Brown Wrapper, where he exhibited cutting edge work by leading artists; art that dealt with sexuality and gender identification. In the late 1980’s when they moved to San Clemente, CA in Orange County, life as an openly gay couple became a political act. They moved to Seattle 16 years ago and married in Canada a few weeks after British Columbia legalized same-sex marriage. Although legally married in some countries, they are only considered domestic partners in Washington State. Equality continues to elude him.
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In a rare move, the White House is pushing back against James Carville, after the longtime political consultant and prolific pundit predicted that Donald Trump’s presidency would end within the next year.
“I’m saying this right now,” Carville declared on his Politicon podcast. “You’re not going to be president a year from now. You’re too soft a man. You’re too weak. Your support is draining out.”
“People are going to be on to you. And when the Democrats get back in office in January, they’re going right after the corruption,” Carville added.
“We’re going to find out all the money that has gone the wrong way, and we’re going to have a legal proceeding, and we’re going to have what you call a clawback,” he said.
The White House, in a statement to Fox News, slammed Carville.
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“James Carville is a stone-cold loser who suffers from a severe and incurable disease known as Trump Derangement Syndrome, and it has rotted his peanut-sized brain,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle told Fox News Digital in a statement.
Carville had other strong words for the president.
“You’re so screwed,” he warned, before referring to a New York Times article.
“They’re leaking on you like crazy,” Carville said. “You can’t trust anybody. Your staff is leaking on you. The Pentagon is leaking on you. The State Department is leaking out here. Everybody is dumping all over you, loser. And, you know, this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
He also warned the president about Vice President JD Vance’s loyalty, and later said, “you’re done, dude. You’re really done. No one fears you anymore. Your own staff doesn’t fear you.”
“But, dude, you and I know something,” Carville continued. “We got a little secret between me and you. You’re done. People hate you. Trust no one. Be as paranoid as you possibly be, because you can’t be paranoid enough.”
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Image via Reuters
As his tenuous ceasefire approaches the 48-hour mark, President Donald Trump remains a “foolhardy and unpredictable executive-in-training” who got “schooled” by Iran, writes Trump biographer and Bloomberg columnist Timothy L. O’Brien.
In addition to costing American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, Trump’s Iran war has cost the lives of American soldiers, and thousands of Iranians. The economic tab may soon approach $100 billion, says O’Brien. But there have also been enormous “reputational, civic and strategic costs” for America.
“In the run-up to a two-week ceasefire announced on Tuesday evening, the president took to social media and the airwaves to warn Iran and the world that ‘a whole civilization will die’ and he intended to bomb the country ‘back to the stone ages.’ He brushed off questions about whether he was willing to commit war crimes by noting that Iranians are ‘animals.'”
Trump’s “dangerous and reckless flexes” may have just been him “bluffing, but sophisticated dealmakers know that undeliverable threats backfire when your bluff is called” — and Iran “called Trump’s bluff.”
READ MORE: Where Were Republicans as Trump Zigzagged on Iran War and Peace?
Now, writes O’Brien, Trump is, “essentially, a downed power line. If he is left to his own devices, sputtering, further conflagrations could consume the Middle East.”
O’Brien reminds that once elected, presidents “should come to the job with tangible aptitudes for management, leadership, policy, rationality and decency,” and not need the White House to be their “finishing school.”
But “largely uneducable,” Trump faces an Iran ceasefire that “is a recess of sorts for the world’s most powerful and incendiary pupil, and he may return to class having failed to absorb his studies.”
Trump is a “blinkered, close-minded leader,” charges O’Brien, and “a serial bankruptcy artist” who, before entering the White House, “was never an adept dealmaker.”
A “serious student” would try to learn from the ceasefire. But a cornered Trump may become “even more dangerous and thuggish.”
Ultimately, Trump “will be measured by whether he defines his Iranian studies by weeks of failed exams — or commits himself to years of mindless and cataclysmic classwork.”
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Image via Reuters
Conservative commentator Bill Kristol suggests President Donald Trump has a “conquistador” complex — which is a complete reversal from how he campaigned in 2024, on “no new wars.”
“If Kamala wins, only death and destruction await because she is the candidate of endless wars. I am the candidate of peace. I am peace,” Trump declared during his 2024 campaign.
“These war hawks, they want to draft your kids to die in wars, and they will never fight themselves,” Trump said, days before the 2024 election.
The night he won, Trump told supporters, “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”
Kristol writes at The Bulwark, “We haven’t heard much talk recently from the president about wars we’re not getting into.”
“Will one consequence of his humiliating failure in Iran be a return to such a stance? Perhaps the difficulties of the last two weeks have diminished Trump’s interest in foreign excursions?” he asks. “Appears not. A taste for foreign adventures seems to have lodged itself in Trump’s brain.”
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He points to Trump just weeks ago saying, “Cuba is next by the way.”
Just yesterday, Trump returned his focus to Greenland.
“NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN. REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Thursday night, Trump appeared to threaten Iran again, declaring that all “U.S. Ships, Aircraft, and Military Personnel, with additional Ammunition, Weaponry, and anything else that is appropriate and necessary for the lethal prosecution and destruction of an already substantially degraded Enemy, will remain in place in, and around, Iran, until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with.”
He concluded: “In the meantime our great Military is Loading Up and Resting, looking forward, actually, to its next Conquest. AMERICA IS BACK!”
Kristol notes that it is unusual for an American president to “proclaim ‘Conquest’ as his goal. In his June 6, 1944 D-Day prayer, President Roosevelt said that American soldiers ‘fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate.'”
But for this president, “the dream of foreign conquest seems to have become a more central part of Trump’s personal sense of grandiosity, not to say megalomania, than it was earlier in his career.”
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Image via Reuters
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