What stories does HearLore have on 20th-century American classical composers?

HearLore has narrated stories on 20th-century American classical composers, each linked to related entries. Start with any one and follow the connections to your next listen.

Is there narrated audio for 20th-century American classical composers?

Yes. Every 20th-century American classical composers story on HearLore is narrated. The story is free to read, and listening is a membership that starts with 7 days free.

Are 20th-century American classical composers stories on HearLore free?

Every 20th-century American classical composers story is free to read on HearLore, all the way through. Listening is a membership. The first 7 days are free, then $3.99 a month or $24.99 a year.

Curated playlist

20th-century American classical composers

Kurt Weill11 minKurt Julian Weill was born on the 2nd of March 1900 in Dessau, the son of a synagogue cantor, and he died in New York City on the 3rd of April 1950, just days after turning fifty. In that half-century he crossed continents, languages, and…
Igor Stravinsky14 minIgor Stravinsky once received a score back from his mentor in the mail, returned with a note reading: "Not delivered on account of death of addressee." That mentor was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the most powerful figure in Russian music, and…
George Gershwin11 minGeorge Gershwin's last words were "Fred Astaire." He spoke them on the night of the 9th of July 1937, as he collapsed in a borrowed house in Beverly Hills, working on the score of The Goldwyn Follies. He was 38. Two days later, in the…
Ezra Pound14 minEzra Weston Loomis Pound was born on the 30th of October 1885 in a two-story clapboard house in Hailey in the Idaho Territory. He would go on to become one of the defining voices in modernist literature, a tireless champion of writers like…
John Cage11 minJohn Milton Cage Jr. spent his entire life asking a single question: what is music? He was born on the 5th of September, 1912, in Los Angeles, and for nearly eight decades he pursued an answer so radical it would alienate friends, baffle…
Roger Sessions6 minRoger Sessions was born on the 28th of December, 1896, in Brooklyn, New York. His mother, Ruth Huntington Sessions, was a direct descendant of Samuel Huntington, a signatory of the Declaration of Independence. That genealogical link to the…
Aaron Copland16 minAaron Copland grew up above a Brooklyn shop at 628 Washington Avenue, in a family of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants who had traveled through Scotland just to afford the boat fare to America. His father had no interest in music. His mother…
John Williams9 minJohn Williams played two notes for Steven Spielberg, alternating, low and ominous, and Spielberg laughed because he thought it was a joke. The film was Jaws. Williams stood his ground. The simple idea won, and that two-note pattern became…
Frank Zappa13 minFrank Vincent Zappa was born on the 21st of December, 1940, in Baltimore, Maryland, into a household where Italian was spoken by his grandparents and gas masks hung by the door. His father, a chemist and mathematician who worked in the…
Jennifer Higdon8 minJennifer Higdon picked up a flute her mother had bought and began teaching herself to play from an old flute method book. She had no theory training, no keyboard skills, and could not spell a chord. By her own account, she started from…