It’s hard to believe that Ned Rorem is 95 years-old.

For decades, it seemed as if Rorem was classical music’s answer to Dick Clark, America’s oldest teenager. I often saw him, on the streets of Philadelphia, at the AIA Bookstore, at Borders, and at the Curtis Institute of Music, where he taught, back in the ‘90s. Rorem was in his 70s at the time, but he looked like he couldn’t have been any more than 50.

To celebrate his birthday, and to tie in with Gary Graffman’s 90th birthday earlier this month, we’ll hear Rorem’s Piano Concerto for Left Hand and Orchestra (1991). The work was recorded in concert at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music, with Graffman the soloist, and the Curtis Symphony Orchestra under the direction of André Previn. (If you listen carefully, you may hear me applauding at the end.)

Typical of Rorem’s concertos, the work defies the customary “classical” three-movement structure. Instead, the composer serves up eight movements, bookended by two passacaglias. Material from the opening, which resembles a kind of scat singing, recurs at various points throughout the piece.

At his most reflective, I think, Rorem betrays his formative years in Paris. Though they certainly both followed their own distinctive muses, there is something in Rorem’s uncluttered lyricism that often reminds me of Poulenc with an American accent. The concerto also calls to mind (my mind, anyway) Olivier Messiaen, with its ecstatic dissonances.

Rorem’s genius for the “miniature” – eight short movements, as opposed to three epic statements in the great German tradition – is also reflected in his work as an art song composer and an unusually candid diarist. Rorem has expounded on his predilection for all things French on numerous occasions. “The world is divided into two aesthetic styles: French and German,” he notes. “The color red is German. The color blue is French. Men are German, women are French. Japan is French, and China is German. German art is known for being profoundly superficial, and French art, for being superficially profound. I am French. If you disagree with my analysis, then you are German.”

Rorem’s concerto will be among my featured works this afternoon between 2 and 4 p.m. Prior to that, I hope you will join me for chamber music by Brahms, Dvořák, Liszt, and Mendelssohn, on today’s Noontime Concert, in performances from the Lake George Music Festival.

The music is forever young. You don’t have to be Ned Rorem to hold the secret of youth, from 12 to 4 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.

PHOTO: Rorem in Paris, 1953