Aaron Copland was an urban American Jew of Russian extraction born – as he memorably remarked –

on November 14 1900 on a street in Brooklyn that can only be described as drab. It had none of the garish colour of the ghetto, none of the charm of an old New England thoroughfare, or even a pioneer street. It fills me with mild wonder every time I realize that a musician was born on that street. Music was the last thing anyone would ever have connected with that street. In fact, no one ever had connected music with my family or that street. The idea was entirely original with me.