Copland Organ

Copland wrote Billy the Kid in 1938 on commission from Lincoln Kirstein, a noted New York impresario and cofounder of the New York City Ballet. The music became an instant success, incorporating as it does several well-known folk and Western tunes and telling an episodic story more about the Wild West in general than specifically about the notorious outlaw William H. Bonney (born Henry McCartney).

Copland began his Music for the Theatre in May 1925 in New York City, but the bulk of the composition was written at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire during the summer. Having been impressed with Copland's earlier Symphony for Organ and Orchestra (1924), conductor Sergey Koussevitzky (1874-1951) urged the League of Composers to commission an orchestral piece from Copland, to be performed the following season.

"Sony Classical is pleased to announce another ten releases in its increasingly comprehensive series of Classical Masters. These new budget-priced CD box sets contain classic recordings, many of them newly remastered, by some of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century.

The vocal/piano duo Emerald Ghost was formed in 2019 in Bern, Switzerland, and comprises the British soprano Lucy De Butts and the Italian pianist Giovanna Gatto.