The composer Elliott Carter, who turns 104 in December and is still composing prolifically, has collected his share of prestigious awards over the decades, among them two Pulitzer Prizes and the National Medal of Honor in the United States, Germany's Ernst von Siemens Music Prize and the Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, from France.
Now the French are proffering another: on Sept. 21, in a ceremony at the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, in New York, Mr. Carter will be given the insignia of Commander of the Legion of Honor by François Delattre, the French ambassador to the United States. The award, France's highest, was established by Napoleon in 1802. There are three ranks, of which M r. Carter's â€" Commander â€" is the highest. (Paul McCartney, who was given the Legion of Honor last week in Paris by François Hollande, the French president, received the middle rank, Officer.)
Mr. Carter's connections with France go way back: because his family was in the business of importing lace, he visited Europe frequently as a child, and learned to speak French and English nearly concurrently. In 1935 he completed his doctorate in music at the École Normale de Musique, where he was a student of Nadia Boulanger. The French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez has long been one of his champions, as has, more recently, the pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard. And though Mr. Carter's vocal works include relatively few French settings â€" an exception is “La Musique†(2007), with a text by Baudelaire â€" the titles of several of his instrumental works are in French.
Other Americans who have received the Legion of Honor include John Ashbery (whose poetry Mr. C arter has set), Renée Fleming, Barbra Streisand, Toni Morrison, David Lynch and and Elie Wiesel.
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