Located on Washington Street in Cortlandt Manor, New York, United States, and built in the 1940s, the house and its garage were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003, and five years later, in 2008, they were designated a National Historic Landmark,[3] the only one in the country connected to a figure from the world of classical music.
It awards six to nine emerging or mid-career American composers the opportunity to work and reside, one at a time, at Rock Hill.
Composers who apply and are approved, are afforded three-to-eight-week stays in the house, with an allowance for food and the use of a car, while they work.
[7] Other previous winners include Pierre Jalbert, Richard Danielpour, Robert Xavier Rodriguez, Robert Paterson, Judith Lang Zaimont, Andrew Norman, Derek Bermel, Du Yun, Henry Threadgill, Alvin Singleton, Dave Douglas, Christopher Theofanidis, Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann and Hannah Lash.
[10] The 2+1⁄2-acre (1.0-hectare) Rock Hill property is on the south side of Washington Street in the Town of Cortlandt, one mile (1.5 kilometers) east of the hamlet of Crugers on the Hudson River.
The surrounding neighborhood is residential, with larger, newer houses on large lots amid the gently rolling, wooded terrain.
Vertical clapboard siding rises to an asphalt roof, vaulted with a small flat area at the northwest corner.
A second stone stair rises from the parking area on the northwest to a wood staircase which ends at a secondary entrance on the kitchen wing.
[2] The most significant of the rooms is the 17-by-24-foot (5.2 by 7.3 m) studio, with carpeted hardwood flooring, the dramatic views to the south and west through the glass walls, and bookshelves with much of Copland's personal library on the east side and a collection of recorded American music.
Its main furnishing is Copland's grand piano, his work desk made for him by a local farmer, a wooden chair given to the composer by Harvard University and an upholstered armchair in which he was sometimes photographed.
[11] The adjacent similarly sized library has full-height bookshelves, some of which are large enough to hold full scores of compositions by Copland and the composers who have resided here since.
It is sided in vertical knotty pine paneling and has a large fireplace, as well as several chairs of Copland's and a dining area.
He traveled widely, but always returned to New York City, where he lived near what is now Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side.
[2] As a boy, he had spent one summer at a camp in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains, an experience he recalled fondly in his later autobiography.
In 1947 he realized he would have to have a country place of his own, and took out a three-year rental on a Colonial-era house in the Rockland County hamlet of Palisades.
[2] After two years as a visiting professor at Harvard and then Tanglewood Music Center, Copland in 1952 bought his first house, Shady Lane Farm in Ossining.
In his later years Rock Hill served primarily as a base for his travels, which included many appearances guest-conducting his work at performances all over the world, and receiving honorary degrees and awards.
The roof was failing, structural wood had begun to rot and the heating system was not running properly, among other problems.
Once that was concluded, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, executor of the composer's estate, and the town worked out the details of the composer-in-residence program.
[7] Under the program, American composers who apply and are approved get three-to-eight-week stays in the house, with an allowance for food and the use of a car, while they work.