Music Monday | The Music of Spring | May 18, 2026

The Music of Spring

Aaron Copland, celebrated as an American treasure, is known for Appalachian Spring, one of his most famous compositions. The work was originally created for a ballet featuring Martha Graham, who titled it after a poem written by Harold Hart Crane.

“It had to do with the pioneer American spirit, with youth and spring, with optimism and hope,” Copland wrote.

Graham told Copland that she wanted the dance to be “a legend of American living, like a bone structure, the inner frame that holds together a people.”In the spring of 1945 Copland arranged a suite from the ballet for full orchestra, which won the Pulitzer Prize for music that year.

With the passing last month of renowned composer and conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, founder of Miami’s New World Symphony, today we bring you his arrangement of Copland’s Appalachian Spring.

https://youtu.be/3ZZcPL_AdOA?si=XiFokg5fnTW5s8Tj