Elliott Carter
Born 1908

Twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, first composer to receive the United States National Medal of Arts, one of the few composers ever awarded Germany's Ernst Von Siemens Music Prize, and in 1988 made "Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" by the Government of France, Elliott Carter is internationally recognized as one of the leading American voices of the classical music tradition. He recently received the Prince Pierre Foundation Music Award, bestowed by the Principality of Monaco, and was one of a handful of living composers elected to the Classical Music Hall of Fame.

First encouraged toward a musical career by his friend and mentor Charles Ives, Carter was recognized by the Pulitzer Prize Committee for the first time in 1960 for his groundbreaking String Quartet No. 2. Stravinsky hailed Carter’s Double Concerto for harpsichord, piano, and two chamber orchestras (1961) and Piano Concerto (1967), as "masterpieces." While he spent much of the 1960s working on just two works, the Piano Concerto and Concerto for Orchestra (1969), the breakthroughs he achieved in those pieces led to an artistic resurgence that gathered momentum in the decades that followed. Indeed, one of the extraordinary features of Carter’s career is his astonishing productivity and creative vitality as he reaches the zenith of his tenth decade.

This astonishing late-career creative burst has resulted in a plethora of new works. The first few weeks of 2004 brought a pair of acclaimed new scores: Micomicon, a witty concert-opener for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the incisive Dialogues for piano and large ensemble, commissioned by the London Sinfonietta. France enjoyed the world premiere of Réflexions at Cité de la Musique in February of 2005 and celebrated Carter’s work with multiple ovations. In the United States, the Boston Symphony Orchestra brought Carter’s Three Illusions for Orchestra to life in October 2005, a piece which the Boston Globe called “surprising, inevitable, and vividly orchestrated.” In the same month Daniel Barenboim assumed the roles of conductor and pianist in the world premiere of Soundings with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Carter continues to show his mastery in smaller forms as well. Along with a large number of brief solo and chamber works, his later years have brought major essays such as Quintet (piano and winds, 1991), String Quartet No.5 (1995), composed for the Arditti Quartet, and Asko Concerto (2000) for Holland’s ASKO Ensemble. Recent premieres of chamber works include the playfully humorous Mosaic, with the Nash Ensemble in 2005, as well as three premieres in 2006: Intermittences, a piano solo co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall Corporation and The Gilmore International Keyboard Festival and performed by Peter Serkin, In the Distances of Sleep, with Michelle DeYoung and the MET Chamber Ensemble under James Levine, and Caténaires, a solo piano piece performed by Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Looking ahead, the composer’s Horn Concerto, written forJames Sommerville, is set to premiere in November of 2007 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under James Levine.

December 11, 2008 will mark Carter’s 100th birthday.