Performance Today®

During a fictitious plague called The Red Death, a prince invited friends to a party, locked safely inside his castle. But a mysterious visitor showed up, and the party took a turn decidedly for the worse. On today's show, hear Andre Caplet's "Conte fantastique," inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's "Masque of the Red Death."

Maria Newman was born into a family of famous, formidable composers. She was so intimidated when she was growing up she gave up composition altogether. In the end, though, she had music inside her that just had to come out. On today's show, learn about how Maria Newman stepped into her own as a composer and hear her Sonata for Solo Guitar, Storgé, performed by guitarist Nicholas Goluses.

It goes around and around: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, runoff, and the cycle repeats. So, would music inspired by the ecological water cycle also have no beginning and no end? We'll find out, with music by Libby Larsen on this edition of Performance Today.

Concert curator Geoff Nuttall loves cellos - can't get enough of them. But he says that getting four cellists onstage at the same time is like trying to get four unicorns together. On today's show, a rare sighting: four all-star cellists at the Spoleto Festival USA perform "When the Night" by Paul Wiancko.

In today's episode, we’ll hear an extraordinary piece of music that just doesn't get played very often. It's a piece that French composer Florent Schmitt wrote for a ballet in Paris in 1933. Conductor JoAnn Falletta leads the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of Oriane and the Prince of Love by Florent Schmitt.

Join us today to hear a new marimba concerto by composer Alexis Alrich, with Dame Evelyn Glennie on the marimba with conductor Jean Thorel leading the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong.

Claude Debussy completed what many consider to be his first important work, his String Quartet in G Minor. The composition follows the traditional string quartet form, but the music within was something completely new. On today's show, hear the Schumann Quartet perform Debussy's only string quartet from a concert at the Music@Menlo chamber music festival and institute.

Kenji Bunch gave one of his recent compositions a rather unusual title. Join us today to hear this piece and the story behind that title: 'The 3 Gs' by Kenji Bunch.

Concert curator Geoff Nuttall loves cellos. Can't get enough of them. But he says that getting four cellists onstage at the same time is like trying to get four unicorns together. On today's show, a rare sighting: four all-star cellists at the Spoleto Festival USA perform "When the Night" by Paul Wiancko.