Fascinating guy.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is 99.
Olivia de Havilland is 102.
Carl Reiner is 96.
Nehemiah Persoff is 99.
Amazing that these people are still around.
Rorem wouldn’t be the first composer to stop composing, though at 95 it’s more understandable with him. Giacomo Rossini, Jan Sibelius, and Charles Ives, among others, decided in the middle of their lives to give up composing music. Rossini concentrated on cuisine, Ives on his business career, and Sibelius? Well, everyone already knew when he stopped something that he was able to Finnish...
So he stopped composing...but he’s not yet decomposing....
Could have written it "At 95, Ned Rorem Is Done Composing. But He’s Not yet Decomposing."
Ned Rorem is perhaps the composer whose name appears the most in crossword puzzles. It’s because his first and last name conveniently go consonant-vowel-consent etc.
Often clued as: “Composer Ned” or “Composer Rorem”
“At 95, Ned Rorem Is Done Composing.”
A week after Beethoven’s death a man in the graveyard thought he heard music coming from Beethoven’s grave. He ran and got the priest. Of course, a crowd had gathered. The priest leaned over and listened. “Hum,” he muttered, “That’s his Ninth, but it’s being played backwards.” He stood and announced. “It’s nothing to be concerned about. It’s just Beethoven decomposing.”