Aaron Copland’s Soviet Diary (1960)

In early 1960, Aaron Copland, accompanied by Lucas Foss, spent four weeks in the Soviet Union as a representative of the U.S. State Department. There he conducted and performed his own music, met with fellow composers and students, and distributed material on American music. During his travel, Copland kept a brief diary, a rare day-to-day account of Cold War diplomatic work that reveals how Cold War geopolitics mediated his musical evaluations. This article offers an annotated transcription of the diary, contextualized with select English- and Russian-language primary sources.