Elliott Carter celebrated his 100th birthday last night with a concert at Carnegie Hall that featured the New York premiere of Interventions, his piece for piano and orchestra, performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, led by James Levine, with Daniel Barenboim at the piano. New York Times classical music critic Anthony Tommasini calls the occasion "a milestone in music history. And the 17-minute piece—though brainy and complex, like all of Mr. Carter’s scores—was somehow celebratory: lucidly textured, wonderfully inventive, even impish. This was the work of a living master in full command."

Also reporting from the event for the Times, Daniel J. Wakin describes Carter as "the dean of American composers" and "a phenomenon." Wakin writes, "The intellectual and performing giants of the field champion him and several top musicians in New York remain deeply loyal." Not least of these is Levine, who talks to the Times of Carter's continuing, flourishing output, even as the composer celebrates this momentous milestone:

"He’s still writing at the top of his form. Like all great composers, every time he writes a piece he has new ideas he’s trying, as well as coming up with a subtler reworking of something he had done before."

In an interview with Carter and Barenboim on Charlie Rose earlier this week, Levine exclaims: "He's still in his prime at 100."

Barenboim describes the composer in similar terms to Newsweek. "There are so many fascinating sounds that he invents, unusual combinations," the pianist tells Newsweek's Anna Kuchment.

Kuchment uses the occasion of the Carter centennial to examine the process of senescence itself, and the effect of the composer's continued work writing such complex works of art on his longevity, asking: "What has allowed Carter to remain prolific for so long?" She includes Carter among "a growing cohort of aging masters ... who have captured the attention of gerontologists." Newsweek spoke with Dr. Gene Cohen, the director of the Center on Aging, Health & Humanities at George Washington University, who suggests: "The very act of engaging one's mind in creative ways directly affects health." Read the article at newsweek.com.

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The creativity continues to flow tonight in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall, with Making Music: Elliott Carter, a multimedia all-Carter program moderated by Jeremy Geffen, the Hall's director of artistic programming. Included are excerpts from Frank Scheffer's documentary on the composer, the world premiere of his Duettino, and the New York premiere of his piece Mosaic.

Also in New York this weekend, the New York Philharmonic offers a Day of Carter on Saturday, hosted by composer Steven Stucky at Lincoln Center. The day begins at 2 PM with the first screening of a film featuring a conversation between the two composers mad specially for the event; continues with a concert that includes the world premiere of a new Carter piece for soprano and clarinet performed by Lucy Shelton and Stanley Drucker; and concludes with an in-person conversation with Carter.

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There are a number of other celebrations of Carter's works around the world this weekend with concerts in Chicago, Paris, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Vienna, Cologne, Munich, Basel, and Porto, Portugal. For the most comprehensive list of goings-on marking the centenary, visit carter100.com.