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Abdiel Gonzalez, Betty Freeman, E.E. Cummings, Elissa Johnston, Elliott Carter, Ezra Pound, Jon Lee Keenan, LA International New Music Festival, Leonard Bernstein, Leonard Stein, Marianne Moore, Pierre Boulez, Strand Bookstore, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Wallace Stevens
Elliott Carter at work in his Greenwich Village apartment on W. 12th Street.
Around 2:30 P.M. on the afternoon of June 7th, 2012 my wife Jan and I arrived at Elliott Carter’s apartment for what was to be our last meeting together. With Jan’s family in Brooklyn and New Jersey, we’d drop in on Elliott every opportunity we could and have luckily lost count just how many times we’d visited. As Elliott entered his late 90s, each meeting became a special occasion. He was 103 that final late spring day.
The days of lunches prepared by his wife Helen were long gone by that point, but we still remember her simple New England tomato soup, and often quietly wear the scarf she gave Jan or the tie she gave me. And Carter was not far, about a block down and over, from the apartment of Charles Ives, which we’d sometimes go and see after visiting with Carter.
