IVES: A NEW ENGLAND MAVERICK Charles Ives was American classical music's firs genius. The son of a bandmaster in Danbury, Connecticut, Ives took in all the different sou of the New England world around him hymn popular songs and bands, besides classical musi itself. Ignoring every conventional rule, he assembled his musical ideas into tapestries of sc that can be astonishingly daring and dissonant. For instance, in "Puttnam's Camp" in Three Plac in New England (1908-14), the orchestra imita several bands playing at once. Ives was a partne an insurance business, which meant that he could compose only at weekends His music sounded very modern for its time, and only began to be properly appreciated near the end of his life. His wildly complicated The Fourth of July (1913) was not heard for many years. Three Places in New England was only premiered in 1931