The New Copland House

The new COPLAND HOUSE AT BLUESTONE FARM …

right on the northern  border of  ‘B&NC Country’!

Aaron Copeland at Rock Hill

Born in 1900 in Brooklyn, Aaron Copland became known as the ‘Dean of American Music’ and was, most would agree, the most influential American classical music composer of the 20th Century. Notably influenced by Stravinsky and by Schoenberg, Copland is best known for having adapted the classical context to create a distinctly new musical lexicon - what Copland called his ‘vernacular’. His symphonic Fanfare For The Common Man and Third Symphony, his ballets Appalachian Spring - for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1945, Billy The Kid, and Rodeo, and his movie score for The Heiress - for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Score in 1950, incorporate American folk tunes into classical forms to establish what became known as the ‘American sound’. He was the first subject of the PBS American Masters series. …Copland inspired and informed Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, and the general trajectory of American classical, theatric, jazz, and even modern musical composition.

In 1960 Copland acquired a modest home in Cortlandt Manor, known as Rock Hill, where he lived and worked until his death in 1990. A grassroots coalition saved the house from being sold after Copland’s passing, and a non-profit called Copland House Inc. was formed to operate the property as a creative center and a living tribute to Copland’s lifelong advocacy of American music, and opened Rock Hill as Copland House in 1998.

As an organization, Copland House has become the steward of the Copland legacy, and more generally a key supporter of American music today.

The organization has THREE core functions:

1• Multi-faceted composer support, including artist residencies and fellowships, commissions, performance and recording opportunities, mentoring, and career development programs

2• Educational Activities - including Copland House’s widely-varied learning programs  - which have been the recipient of the Yale Distinguished Music Educator Award, and in conjunction with local schools and colleges across America.

3•  Presentation and Production of Live and Recorded Performances, featuring its touring Copland House Ensemble, which performs between twenty and forty concerts all over the world each year and includes a roster of internationally-active musicians - who are also heard on the Copland House Blend label

The Copland House Ensemble will give two more concerts in its “preview” series this spring at Bluestone Farm. On April 26, the Copland House Ensemble will perform “Waters ...  Fractured”, featuring award-winning works by Joan Tower, Chen Yi, Shawn Okpebholo, and Mason Bates, and on June 7 the Copland House Ensemble will showcase its CULTIVATE emerging composers institute with the World Premieres of six new works commissioned especially for this concert.

Current and new albums on the Copland House Blend label feature music by Aaron Copland, Pulitzer Prize-winner Kevin Puts, Grammy winners Richard Danielpour and Shawn Okpebholo, John Musto, Pierre Jalbert, and many other leading and emerging composers. And the Copland House Ensemble can also be heard on an NPR Tiny Desk Concert and the Person Place Thing podcast.

Copland House Inc. has now completed its acquisition of the 24-acre campus…which shall now be known as COPLAND HOUSE AT BLUESTONE FARM!!!

...But almost all of Copland House Inc.’s operations have always taken place ‘off-site’ from Copland House, and the organization has always been greatly constrained by the size and nature of Rock Hill …until now!

It was formerly the Melrose School and was acquired complete with 37,000 square feet of fully usable interior space.

And it’s located at 100 Federal Hill Road in Brewster…where Westchester, Putnam, and Fairfield Counties meet…right on the northern border of ‘B&NC Country’!

The new Copland House at Bluestone Farm is a game changer …for everything Copland…and for every local who will now be able to get Copland House’s top-quality programming right in the neighborhood.

Michael Boriskin, who has been Copland House’s Artistic and Executive Director since soon after the organization got started and is an accomplished Concert Pianist, Recording Artist, and Producer in his own right, will now spearhead a planned Copland House transformational expansion. Boriskin declares, “I see our having Copland House at Bluestone Farm as an enormous opportunity to rethink what it means to be a creative and cultural center in the mid-21st Century. I’m passionate about what we’re doing and about American music, and I feel we’ll be able to engage so much more with the whole region, and especially with young people. I want us to share Copland and the entire American musical landscape with everyone!”

“The new campus includes an auditorium for multi-arts programs with seating for up to 200, a dance space and theater that will hold around 100,  studios and living quarters for visiting artists, an exhibition area and community gathering space, and more,” Boriskin sets forth. “That allows us to host a regular diet of American music, presented in a wide variety of formats. And we can and will choose programs intended to be popular to wider audiences. Thematic concert series celebrating jazz, blues, and Broadway, in addition to innovative and traditional presentations of Copland’s work and influence in each of the decades of his career, and the work of countless other emerging and renowned American composers. We’ll certainly build out the Copland House Ensemble’s ‘preview’ concerts that we’ve already been presenting, to become our mainstage series of six or eight concerts every season; that’ll run from September through June, ranging across one hundred fifty years of America’s soundscape and featuring around two dozen works by as many composers. We’ll also expand our ten-day-long annual CULTIVATE emerging composers institute to serve as the core of our summer activities, with four or five concerts premiering brand new works by outstanding next-generation artists.” 

“Bluestone Farm’s enlarged physical capacity will enable us to offer a vastly broadened menu of multi-arts programming for ‘culture vultures’ in the B&NC area and beyond!,” Boriskin expounds. “Our future will include a dance series, highlighting composer-choreographer collaborations, as well as an ongoing showcase that’ll offer a sneak-peek into works being developed on campus, where one might well catch the next ‘West Side Story’, ‘Hamilton’, or ‘Porgy and Bess’  before anyone else does! And our seasons will also include lifelong learning programs, meet-the-artists events, and various educational activities for young and old. …As we want Bluestone Farm to be a welcoming place for the entire community to gather, reflect, and refresh, we’re planning to reclaim and revive this whole long-dormant and neglected campus, and also partner with some of our regional museum, gallery, and artist colleagues to place outdoor works around the site.”

“What’s more, at least until we build larger audiences, we intend to keep the model of having no fixed charge for events, allowing anyone to come and contribute whatever they want!” Boriskin commits. 

 “…And the Copland House at Bluestone Farm is really convenient to get to, as it’s only a couple of minutes off I-684, I-84, and Route 22…and there’s plenty of free parking!”

Boriskin continues, “In addition to giving us the capacity to offer a wide variety of events, Bluestone Farm will enable us to host entire composer-led creative teams working together to develop large, multi-arts projects including dance, theater, and opera - which we could never do at Rock Hill. “

“…And Bluestone Farm has two very livable houses for us to host several artists-in-residence - and the campus offers the kind of isolation and serenity that supports creativity and productivity in the artists-in-residence experience. We already have hundreds of applications from gifted artists in all stages of their careers seeking an inspiring place to work!”

“…And Bluestone Farm also has a school-full of classrooms and other large flexible spaces! We’re already begun utilizing some of these classrooms as studios for our artists-in-residence and for artists who are collaborating in a wide array of our sponsored activities. …But having an entire campus to work with gives us the opportunity to greatly expand the scope of our programs and operations, and to establish a first-of-its-kind center for American music and arts that truly embraces the entire artistic process, from creation and development, to study, performance, and preservation!”

“We boast a particularly involved, substantive, and effective Board, with up to two dozen voting members, led by our current President  - who’s a neurosurgeon, experienced film and stage actor, and an amateur violinist, Ezriel Kornel,” Boriskin explains. “But having Bluestone Farm - while always continuing to maintain and utilize the Copland House, and regard Rock Hill as our institutional and inspirational base - means a whole other level of capital will be required! …We will be able to deploy new funds as quickly and directly as any new donor may desire, we have plenty of naming opportunities for significant donors, and we’re developing a capital campaign to enable us to realize our vision for Bluestone Farm - with a likely price tag of around fifteen million dollars.”

“I’m in awe of Copland, and I love the feeling of helping to build something from scratch,” Boriskin shares.

“In addition to having given concerts in over thirty countries and served as a program or project advisor for Lincoln Center, the New York Philharmonic, and the U.S. State Department, I’ve served as the Music Director of Mikhail Baryshnikov’s White Oak Dance Project, and was involved in establishing, and then running for a decade, the Rhode Island Summer Music Festival, and all my experience and all the feedback we’ve received tells me we’re getting started on something really special with Copland House at Bluestone Farm! 

…I guarantee it won’t be long before artists and audiences are flocking to our varied year-round offerings for young and old…and we help foster a Copland - and American music - renaissance! It’s our mission to give Copland to an ever-expanding audience!”