Stephen Sondheim celebrates his 80th birthday today, an occasion being honored in theaters and concert halls in New York, around the country, and around the world. Nonesuch Records wishes the composer a very happy birthday and is celebrating as well, taking 30% off every Sondheim CD in the Nonesuch Store all this week.

The Nonesuch Sondheim catalog represents virtually every era of the composer's long and storied career: from the forthcoming cast recording of the current Broadway revival of A Little Night Music, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury, all the way back to Mandy Patinkin's standout 1995 album Oscar & Steve, which pairs Sondheim songs with those of his mentor, Oscar Hammerstein II, as well as Patinkin's more recent collection of Sondheim songs, Mandy Patinkin Sings Sondheim; cast recordings from the first musical Sondheim ever wrote, Saturday Night, to his very latest, Road Show, and its earlier incarnation, Bounce; the premiere recording of early essentials, The Frogs and Evening Primrose, starring Nathan Lane, Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Neil Patrick Harris; the Broadway revival of Into the Woods and director John Doyle's creatively reimagined productions of Company (a Tony winner) and Sweeney Todd; and two versions of the soundtrack from Tim Burton's film adaptation of Sweeney, starring Johnny Depp.

As with almost all CDs in the Nonesuch Store, orders include instant downloads of the complete album as high-quality, 320-kbps MP3s at no additional cost, so while the CD is on its way, you can enjoy the music while the birthday celebrations unfold. However, MP3s for A Little Night Music are available on release day, April 6. The Tony-winning, 30th-anniversary Broadway revival of Gypsy, starring Tyne Daly, while no longer available on CD, remains available digitally.

For more information on all of these recordings and to take advantage of this special offer, click here.

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Angela Lansbury will be among the many Broadway luminaries on hand to toast the composer on his actual birthday tonight for the Roundabout Theatre Company's Sondheim 80. The evening will begin with an early performance at Studio 54 of Sondheim on Sondheim—the new musical retrospective of Sondheim's career directed by James Lapine and starring Barbara Cook, Vanessa Williams, and Tom Wopat—followed by a gala dinner and tribute of songs by composers who followed in Sondheim's footsteps, including Michael John LaChiusa, Jeanine Tesori, and Duncan Sheik.

Playbill, as part of its ongoing Sondheim birthday coverage, spoke with some of this next generation of composers and lyricists, asking them to weight in on their "favorite songs by the master." You can read what they had to say at playbill.com.

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Celebrations of Sondheim's 80th birthday began in earnest a week ago, when the New York Philharmonic performed two nights of sold-out concerts of Sondheim's music at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. The concerts, which New York Times music critic Stephen Holden called "thrilling," were hosted by actor David Hyde Pierce and featured performances from Nonesuch artists like Patinkin and Audra McDonald; vocalists from Nonesuch recordings of his works including Laura Benanti and John McMartin (Into the Woods) and Michael Cerveris and Patti LuPone (Sweeney Todd); performers on other celebrated Nonesuch cast recordings, like Victoria Clark (The Light in the Piazza) and Jason Danieley (Floyd Collins); and such famed interpreters of his music as Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch. Holden reports: "The collective gratitude in the house was accompanied by a silent prayer to the powers on high: please, may it never end." The concert is due to be broadcast on PBS in 2011 as part of the Great Performances series.

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There was more birthday fun as the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, offered a series of free events this past weekend. Among the highlights were a backstage tour of the theater's production of Sweeney Todd; discussions with the actors; screenings of film adaptations of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Gypsy, and West Side Story; and a Sondheim songbook sing-along and cake-cutting celebration. Next month, the Signature presents the first-ever Sondheim Award to Angela Lansbury, star of the current production of A Little Night Music and earlier productions of Anyone Can Whistle, Gypsy, and Sweeney Todd.

Also this weekend, the Paley Center for Media in New York began a two-week series of screenings in honor of the composer's 80th birthday, with a UK performance of Saturday Night and the original television production of Evening Primrose, starring Anthony Perkins and Charmian Carr. Starting this Wednesday, the Center will show A Conversation with Stephen Sondheim, from his 70th birthday in 2000. There are more television rarities to come in the following week, including a closer look inside A Little Night Music.

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New York will celebrate anew next month, at New York City Center's own Sondheim celebration. On April 26, Lansbury will be joined by her Night Music co-star Alexander Hanson, her Sweeney co-star Len Cariou, as well as Michael Cerveris, Raúl Esparza, Sutton Foster, Joanna Gleason, Donna Murphy, and Bernadette Peters, among others for the gala event, which will be directed by John Doyle. The benefit will help fund New York City Center’s artistic and education programs and Young Playwrights Inc, a favorite charity of Sondheim's.

Audra McDonald, Michael Cerveris, and Patti LuPone come together again for more celebratory Sondheim music-making at the Ravinia festival outside Chicago on July 31. This gala event, hosted by the Ravinia Women's Board, is the only performance fundraiser benefiting the not-for-profit festival, including its REACH*TEACH*PLAY education programs.