One of the most influential and enduring modernists of American classical music, Elliott Carter not only lived to 103, but his late-career renaissance included dozens of pieces composed during the final two decades of his life. He is most widely celebrated for his unabashedly challenging and complex yet electrifying series of five string quartets composed between 1951 and 1995, which introduced his idea of metric modulation, with each instrumental part given its own rhythmic identity. Born in New York City in 1908, Carter became an admirer of modernist Charles Ives, and when studying at Harvard (originally focusing on English before switching to music), he enjoyed an informal mentee relationship with the older composer. After earning a master’s degree in 1932, he studied for three years with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, where he received his first commission from his alma mater. Returning to the U.S., he composed initially in the modish neo-classical and neo-romantic styles, but by the early 1940s had surrendered any populist pretexts and began composing for his own edification. Unlike that of many of his peers, Carter’s music began to be regularly performed throughout the U.S. during the 1980s, a phenomenon that continued for the rest of his life. A Guggenheim Fellowship in 1950 allowed him to spend a year composing in the Sonora desert; unimpeded by the grind of teaching, his creative floodgates opened up, and his first string quartet dates from this period. For the next couple of decades he wrote steadily, but took his time with each piece. With little left to prove as he aged, he became more prodigious, even writing an opera, What Next? (1997-98). He continued composing until his death in 2012.