The Aaron Copland School of Music is one of the oldest departments at

Queens College Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...

, founded when the College opened in 1937. The department's curriculum was originally established by Edwin Stringham, and a later emphasis on the analytical system of

Heinrich Schenker Heinrich Schenker (19 June 1868 – 14 January 1935) was a Galician-born Austrian music theorist whose writings have had a profound influence on subsequent musical analysis. His approach, now termed Schenkerian analysis, was most fully exp ...

was initiated by Saul Novack. Some of the students who enrolled in early classes of the college later became faculty members of the department. This included Sol Berkowitz, Gabriel Fontrier,

Leo Kraft Leo Abraham Kraft (July 24, 1922 – April 30, 2014) was an American composer, author, and educator. Kraft was born in Brooklyn, New York. He held degrees from Queens College (CUNY) and Princeton University. He studied composition with Karol R ...

. Other distinguished faculty from the early years included John Castellini, who founded the Choral Society; Boris Schwarz, a refugee from his native

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

in 1917 and later from

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

in the 1930s; Saul Novack, who later became Dean of the Division of Arts and Humanities; and Barry Brook, who with Novack established the doctoral program in music at the Graduate Center of

CUNY , mottoeng = The education of free people is the hope of Mankind , budget = $3.6 billion , established = , type = Public university system , chancellor = Fél ...

. Joseph Machlis, developed the teaching of

music appreciation Music appreciation is a division of musicology that is designed to teach students how to understand and describe the contexts and creative processes involved in music composition. The concept of music appreciation is often taught as a subset o ...

to a high art, and wrote the most successful series of music appreciation textbooks in history. (Machlis's '' Enjoyment of Music: An Introduction to Perceptive Listening'' has been used by more than 3.5 million students and is in its tenth edition.) Later faculty included

Felix Salzer Felix Salzer (June 13, 1904 – August 12, 1986) was an Austrian-American music theorist, musicologist and pedagogue. He was one of the principal followers of Heinrich Schenker, and did much to refine and explain Schenkerian analysis after Sch ...

, a refugee from

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

who was a student of the theorist

and became the leading exponent of his ideas to generations of American students and scholars; and the composers

Hugo Weisgall Hugo David Weisgall (October 13, 1912 – March 11, 1997) was an American composer and conductor, known chiefly for his opera and vocal music compositions. He was born in Ivančice, Moravia (then part of Austria-Hungary, later in his childhood ...

and

George Perle George Perle (6 May 1915 – 23 January 2009) was an American composer and music theorist. As a composer, his music was largely atonal, using methods similar to the twelve-tone technique of the Second Viennese School. This serialist style, an ...

Notable alumni

* Arturo O'Farrill * Marco Oppedisano *

Conrad Herwig Lee Conrad Herwig III (born 1959) is an American jazz trombonist from New York City. Biography Herwig began his career in Clark Terry's band in the early 1980s and has been a featured member in the Joe Henderson Sextet, Tom Harrell's Septet and ...

JoAnn Falletta JoAnn Falletta (born February 27, 1954 in Queens, New York) is an American conductor. Biography Falletta was raised in the borough of Queens in an Italian-American household. She was educated at the Mannes College of Music and The Juilliard Sch ...

* Erika Sunnegårdh *

George Tsontakis George Tsontakis (born Astoria, Queens, New York City, October 24, 1951) is an American composer and conductor. Early life and education He was born in New York City, and is of Greek descent. Tsontakis studied composition with Hugo Weisgall and ...

Tito Muñoz Tito Arturo Muñoz (born July 14, 1983) is an American conductor and is Music Director of The Phoenix Symphony. He was previously Music Director of the Opéra national de Lorraine and Orchestre symphonique et lyrique de Nancy in Nancy, France, an ...

Edward W. Hardy Edward W. Hardy (born January 12, 1992) is an American composer, music director, violinist and violist. He is known as the composer, co-conceiver, music director, and violinist of the Off-Broadway show '' The Woodsman'' and is the owner of '' ...

* Vasili Byros

Notable faculty

* Sol Berkowitz *

Jimmy Heath James Edward Heath (October 25, 1926 – January 19, 2020), nicknamed Little Bird, was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger, and big band A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually co ...

Thea Musgrave Thea Musgrave CBE (born 27 May 1928) is a Scottish composer of opera and classical music. She has lived in the United States since 1972. Biography Born in Barnton, Edinburgh, Musgrave was educated at Moreton Hall School, a boarding independent ...

(emeritus) *

Karol Rathaus Karol Rathaus (Karl Leonhard Bruno Rathaus; also Leonhard Bruno; 16 September 1895 — 21 November 1954) was a German-Austrian Jewish composer who immigrated to the United States via Berlin, Paris, and London, escaping the rise of Nazism in German ...

* Marcy Rosen * David Jolley *

Carl Schachter Carl E. Schachter (born June 1, 1932"Carl E. Schachter," in "New Jersey, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1956-1964" on ''Ancestry.com'') is an American music theorist noted for his expertise in Schenkerian analysis. Born in Chicago, he attended Austin H ...

* Stephanie Chase *

Roland Hanna Roland Pembroke Hanna (February 10, 1932 – November 13, 2002) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and teacher. Biography Hanna studied classical piano from the age of 11, but was strongly interested in jazz, having been introduced to i ...

Maurice Peress Maurice Peress (March 18, 1930 – December 31, 2017) was an American orchestra conductor, educator and author. After serving as assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein beginning in 1961, Peress went on to stand ...

Bruce Saylor Bruce Saylor (born April 24, 1946, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American composer. Biography Saylor was born in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. In 1952, his family moved to Springfield Township, just outside the city, where he attend ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Aaron Copland School Of Music Queens College, City University of New York Educational institutions established in 1937 1937 establishments in New York City Music schools in New York City