Ives, born in 1874, was the son of a city musician and bandleader, George Ives, who pressed his son to never shy away from originality. Ives, who was on the Danbury High School baseball and football teams, was a skilled church organist by his teens. But after graduating from Yale University, Ives decided against making music his career. Instead, he took a job with the Mutual Life Insurance Co. He later started his own firm, Ives & Myrick, which became one of the most successful insurance companies in the country and he retired a rich man. He died in 1954.

"He wrote a life insurance pamphlet, ´The Amount to Carry´ that´s still being used today," Sudik of the Danbury Music Centre said.

Splitting his time between New York City and his farm in West Redding, where he lived with his wife, Harmony Twichell, Ives had a 20-year span of inspiration from about 1896 to 1917 — that year, a heart attack led to a physical breakdown and a waning ability to compose.

During those two decades, he heard almost none of his music performed. It was considered too difficult, too different, too odd, To continue writing against such indifference and antagonism, said composer Aaron Copland, took "the courage of a lion."

It was only in the last 30 years of his life — when he lived in retirement in West Redding with Harmony — that some of the nation´s leading musicians discovered and began to champion his compositions. In 1947, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Third Symphony, composed in 1904. Ever afraid of losing his independence, he gave away the $500 that went with the award.

That reputation for Charles Ives´ music being too gnarly to be enjoyed still exists today. Read about his life and his music.