Afternoon of a Faun

We're seeking to understand more about how you listen to ‘Performance Today’ and what you value about the show. The survey is open through Sept. 29 and should take 5 to 10 minutes to complete. Your input is important to us. Please click on the headline or image to start the survey. Thank you for your time and responses!

When Felix Mendelssohn was 14, he wrote music for a family party. The manuscript was then stashed away in the Mendelssohn household and forgotten about, and it wasn't played again until 1999. Hear the lost and found Double Concerto by Felix Mendelssohn on today’s show.

Scott Yoo is many things: violinist, conductor, and Artistic Director of Festival Mozaic, to name a few, but until recently, he hadn't considered himself a composer. In 2023, Yoo composed a piano quartet while documenting the process for his PBS series "Now Hear This." We'll hear his Piano Quartet on today's show, from a concert presented by Festival Mozaic in San Luis Obispo, California.

During the pandemic, when concert halls were closed, cellist and composer Paul Wiancko was overflowing with ideas. Wiancko says he filled a new piece he was working on with feelings of love, fantasy, and the joy of being together. Join us today to hear ‘Cities of Air’ by Paul Wiancko at a concert in Charleston, South Carolina.

Pianist Lucas Debargue quit piano lessons in 2005 when he was 15 years old. As recently as 2015, he worked as a cashier at a supermarket. Then, he made an out-of-nowhere splash at the 2015 Tchaikovsky competition in Russia and has had a lively career ever since. Tune in today to hear Lukas Debargue play one of his own compositions at a concert in Stockholm, Sweden.

Thomas Sondergard first conducted the Minnesota Orchestra in December 2021, immediately establishing a rapport with musicians and audiences. He was appointed as the Orchestra's 11th music director in July 2022. One of the highlights of his first season was a series of concerts featuring music by LGBTQ+ composers. Learn more about Thomas Sondergard on this episode of Performance Today.

During the pandemic, when concert halls were closed, cellist and composer Paul Wiancko was overflowing with ideas. Wiancko says he filled a new piece he was working on with feelings of love, fantasy, and the joy of being together. Join us today to hear ‘Cities of Air’ by Paul Wiancko at a concert in Charleston, South Carolina.

In 2017, Composer Hannah Kendall wrote a piece inspired by a poem about women who worked in match factories in the 1800s. The piece, aptly titled The Spark Catchers, is full of kinetic energy and driving rhythms. On today's show, we'll hear The Spark Catchers by Hannah Kendall.

In the last decade of his life, Johann Sebastian Bach worked on a vast exploration of the fugue, but he never finished the final section of the piece. Tune in today to hear the Danish String Quartet play J.S. Bach's extraordinary and unfinished “The Art of Fugue.”

When a piece is well-written for orchestra, sometimes a piano version can feel slightly empty. Today, we’ll hear pianist Ilya Shmukler play one of those piano versions, but this one has a percussive pianistic quality that makes it lovable: Stravinsky's Petrushka for solo piano.