Editing Nicolas Slonimsky (section)

=== Later life and work ===
In 1964 Slonimsky's wife died and he moved to Los Angeles. He taught at UCLA for three years, and lectured and spoke about music, introducing himself to classes by spelling out his name: "Slonimsky. S–L–O as in 'slow', N–I–M as in 'nimble', S–K–Y as in 'sky'." He possessed a sly sense of humor, and was a regular guest on radio and television programs, including [[Johnny Carson]]'s ''[[The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson|Tonight Show]]''. New York public television station [[WNET]] filmed an interview with him for the "Aging" segment of the [[PBS]] series ''The Mind''.<ref>{{cite thesis|last=Noelle Mullinger|first=Lisa|title=Nicolas Slonimsky's Role in the Musical Modernism of the Early Twentieth Century|type=[[Master of Music]] thesis|url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/213402673.pdf|date=18 April 2013|publisher=[[University of Kansas]]|page=67}}</ref>

He became a friend of [[avant-garde]] composer and rock guitarist [[Frank Zappa]], and performed some of his own compositions at a Zappa concert in [[Santa Monica, California]], in 1981. He named his cat Grody-to-the-Max after learning the phrase from Zappa's daughter [[Moon Zappa]].<ref name="Perfect" /><ref name="Kozinn" />

Slonimsky wrote the ''Lectionary of Music'' as a "reading dictionary," as he called it. Then in 1988, he published his autobiography, ''Perfect Pitch'', filled with anecdotes about musical figures of the 20th century, including his mentors and colleagues.

For his 98th birthday, he visited Saint Petersburg to participate in a music festival. A documentary of his life including video of this visit, ''A Touch of Genius'', was broadcast by Film America on his 100th birthday.<ref>{{YouTube|0LYSd05BbOg||title=Nicolas Slonimsky Documentary: ''A Touch of Genius'' (56 minutes)}} {{Webarchive|url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211211/0LYSd05BbOg|date=2021-12-11}}</ref> He died in Los Angeles in 1995 at the age of 101.<ref name=Kozinn /> His papers are archived in the [[Library of Congress]].<ref>{{Cite web|date=1997|title=Nicolas Slonimsky collection, 1873–1997|url=http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.music/eadmus.mu002011|access-date=2022-01-04|website=[[Library of Congress]]}}</ref>