Twentieth Century (1930-2000)

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    John Philip Sousa

    Sousa created operas that weren't very good, however he was famous for his marches.
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    Charles Ives

    Ives was a very innovative and original composer. He had a very unique style due to his childhood and his style was polytonal with limited polyrhythms, poly meters, and atonality.
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    Robert Nathaniel Dett

    Dett was one of the founders of NANM, the National Association of Negro Musicians. He also studied with Nadia Boulanger.
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    Luigi Russolo

    Russolo was known best for making his own instruments. He made six families of noises, everything from screams to explosions, for future orchestras.
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    Florence Price

    Price had an early start to musical fame as a child prodigy. By eleven, she had her first composition published. Since Price was Black, she presented herself as Mexican to avoid being discriminated against. Her symphony was performed by a major American orchestra, making her the first black female composer to do so.
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    Nadia Boulanger

    Nadia was one of the most influential people of her time. The only 20th century composer she did not teach was George Gershwin. Her younger sister was Lili Boulanger.
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    Sergei Prokofiev

    Prokofiev was a Russian composer. He was most famous for composing "Peter and the Wolf".
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    Lili Boulanger

    Lili was the younger sister of Nadia. She was a better musician and composer than her sister, but she died at a young age.
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    William Grant Still

    Still was the first Black American composer to conduct a major symphony orchestra. He created his own style by blending African American idioms with traditional European genres.
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    Henry Cowell

    Cowell was a composer interested in non-Western music. He invented a different style of music and new techniques for the piano.
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    George Gershwin

    Gershwin became well-known after writing Broadway music with his older brother. They wrote the very first musical comedy to win the Pulitzer Prize. He was rejected by Nadia when he wanted to study with her because he wanted to have the same style as her instead of creating his own.
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    Edward Kennedy Ellington

    He stole other people's work so most of the works with his name on it are not his.
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    Aaron Copland

    Copland's mostly tonal style was inspired by Mexican dance and Old West music.
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    Elliot Carter

    Carter was the first composer to receive the United States National Medal of Arts, along with winning two Pulitzer Prizes. He led modernism.
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    William Schumann

    His work was very structured with line and dynamism. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1943.
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    John Cage

    Cage is most well-known for his piece 4'33". He studied with Cowell and Schoenberg.
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    Billie Holiday

    Holiday was one of the most famous female jazz singers. Although she was black, she was able to avoid a lot of racism because she became famous very quickly.
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    Billy Strayhorn

    Most of Strayhorn's work was stolen by Ellington after they collaborated for years.
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    Leonard Bernstein

    Bernstein was a Broadway composer who was a big influence, almost as big as Nadia.
  • Blues

  • Jazz

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    The Harlem Renaissance

  • Scat Singing

  • Swing

  • Music in Films

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    WWII

  • Bebop

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    Musique Concrete

    This French concept was a style created to make sounds using natural sources.
  • Rock 'n' Roll

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    Civil Rights Movement

  • West Side Story

  • The Synthesizer