MUSIC FROM COPLAND HOUSE is the acclaimed resident ensemble at Aaron Copland’s landmark, longtime New York home, now restored as a unique creative center for American music.  Since its trium-phant New York debut as the Opening Night of Merkin Hall’s 1999-2000 season, Music from Copland House has come to occupy a special place on the U.S. musical scene as perhaps this country’s only American repertory ensemble.  Provocatively uniting past and present, American and non-American, the ensemble ranges widely through 150 years of our nation’s rich musical legacy, and “has become our paramount keeper of Copland’s flame” (American Record Guide).

Hailed by The New York Times for performances that are “all exuberance and bright sunshine,” MCH has been engaged by some of America’s foremost concert venues, including Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles, Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, and the Caramoor International, Cape Cod, Cooperstown, and Bard Music Festivals.  The ensemble has also appeared at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, the Universities of Louisville, Buffalo, and South Carolina, and Brandeis and Auburn Universities, and collaborated with the European Broadcasting Union and National Public Radio on a special production aired in over 20 European countries showcasing American works.  MCH is regularly featured on Copland House’s popular new mainstage concert series at the historic Merestead estate just north of New York City.  

MCH has commissioned Chen Yi, Richard Danielpour, Tamar Muskal, Pierre Jalbert, Derek Bermel, and Sebastian Currier, whose Copland House work, Static, won the highly-coveted Grawemeyer Award for Musical Composition in 2007.  The ensemble followed its widely-praised debut recording on Arabesque, the first complete cycle of Copland’s chamber music, with two releases on Koch International, respective-ly devoted to chamber music by Currier and John Musto.  Inspired by Copland’s peerless, lifelong advocacy of American composers, the ensemble also offers children’s programs, master classes, lectures, residencies, and workshops, and other educational and community outreach activities.

MCH’s exceptional Founding Artists are widely admired for their instrumental command and musical insights in works both old and new:  clarinetist-composer Derek Bermel, pianist and Copland House Artistic and Executive Director Michael Boriskin, flutist-conductor Paul Lustig Dunkel, violinist Nicholas Kitchen (of the Borromeo String Quartet), and cellist Wilhelmina Smith (of The Mannes Trio and the Variation string trio). They are often joined by outstanding, award-winning guest artists, including violinists Tim Fain, Curtis Macomber, Jesse Mills, and Harumi Rhodes, violists Danielle Farina, Cynthia Phelps, Hsin-Yun Huang; and Kathryn Lockwood, pianists John Musto and Michael Barrett; sopranos Amy Burton, Lauren Flanigan; baritones William Sharp and Philip Cutlip; and many others.