The propagation of acoustic waves in a two-dimensional composite medium constituted of a square array of parallel copper cylinders in air is investigated both theoretically and experimentally. The band structure is calculated with the plane wave expansion (PWE) method by imposing the condition of elastic rigidity to the solid inclusions. The PWE results are then compared to the transmission coefficients computed with the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method for finite thickness composite samples. In the low frequency regime, the band structure calculations agree with the FDTD results indicating that the assumption of infinitely rigid inclusion retains the validity of the PWE results to this frequency domain. These calculations predict that this composite material possesses a large absolute forbidden band in the domain of the audible frequencies. The FDTD spectra reveal also that hollow and filled cylinders produce very similar sound transmission suggesting the possibility of realizing light, effective sonic insulators. Experimental measurements show that the transmission through an array of hollow Cu cylinders drops to noise level throughout frequency interval in good agreement with the calculated forbidden band.