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AARON COPLAND
Featured Objects 
BILLY THE KID
Billy the Kid.
Autograph full score, 1938.
Aaron Copland Collection
Music Division, Library of Congress.
©1978 The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc., Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., sole licensee (33)
Digital ID #mc0033
Billy the Kid
Aaron Copland (1900–1990) was working on Billy the Kid at The MacDowell Colony in September of 1938, when the Great Hurricane of 1938 swept through New England. He recalled that the Colony’s grounds looked like a "desolate war-torn swamp" in the storm's aftermath. It took two men with axes more than two hours to cut through the downed trees and rescue his manuscript from the Chapman Studio. The ballet was scheduled to premiere on October 6, 1938—Copland moved to a new studio and kept on working.
