American, 1900 - 1990. Composer of the quintessential American music: Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid, Fanfare for the Common Man. Although his music is spectacular and evocative of the American experience, his life was atypical of the same. A New Yorker, Jewish (Copland was changed by his forebears from Kaplan to sound less Jewish), homosexual, he was in fact quite the opposite of a Daniel Boone character. Yet in his art he created images as clear and patriotic as John Phillip Sousa or Norman Rockwell. I now celebrate him for the very American characteristic of adding generously to the fabric of life and culture while refusing to blindly step in line.