Stephen Sondheim's 80th birthday, which fell on March 22 of this year, has been celebrated in many ways then and in the months since, including high-profile concerts at venues around the world featuring such renowned interpreters of the composer's music as Many Patinkin, Audra McDonald, Elaine Stritch, Bernadette Peters, and many others. Stritch and Peters are currently starring in the Broadway revival of A Little Night Music, having taken on the roles performed by Angela Lansubry and Catherine Zeta-Jones on the new Nonesuch / PS Classics cast recording.

In the latest Sunday New York Times, Peters discusses her process for preparing to play the role each night and, more specifically, singing "send in the Clowns," one of Sondheim's most popular tunes. Read what this veteran of a number of Sondheim productions has to say about it at nytimes.com.

Also in the Times, music critic Anthony Tommasini recently recapped some of the year's stand-out celebratory concerts and events for the Arts Beat blog, then added his own unique birthday wishes to the composer: a Times video featuring the writer at the piano performing and discussing some of his own favorite Sondheim musical moments.

"Sondheim in his musicals, in his music, folds details and complexities into the score, into the music, but he doesn't hit you over the head with those things," Tommasini explains. After using, as an example, a theme from the 1984 musical Sunday in the Park with George (which starred Patinkin and Peters), he concludes: "It's that kind of detail that makes Stephen Sondheim so important to musicians and composers, but it is also what makes the show so rich and meaningful, and why he is so beloved by so many people, including me."

Read more at watch the video at nytimes.com.