Performance Today®

For more than 20 consecutive years now, students from top schools of music around the country have joined us as PT Young Artists in Residence. On today's show, we continue this year's series with pianist Tristan Paradee.

Every week, composer Bruce Adolphe joins us for a musical game—our Piano Puzzler. Bruce re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a great composer, and we get one of our listeners on the phone who tries to guess the hidden tune and the composer whose style Bruce is imitating. Play along with this week’s Piano Puzzler!

During the 1920s, Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu began to withdraw from the styles in which he was trained, and ballets became his favorite medium for experimentation. On today's show, hear ballet music set in an unusual setting: La Revue de Cuisine (Kitchen Revue) by Bohuslav Martinu.

American composer John Adams wrote a piece for clarinetist Michael Collins: "Gnarly Buttons." That unusual title is a half joking reference to how difficult it is to play the clarinet, which has all those difficult keys on it, those... gnarly buttons. On today's show, hear Michael Collins and members of the Minnesota Orchestra play this fun, yet emotional piece of music.

In the early 1970s, two Juilliard students met and became close friends. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Emanuel Ax. Their friendship has spanned almost half a century now, and their musical collaborations go back more than 40 years. On today's show, Fred talks to Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma about music and emotions, and we'll hear from their brand new album Hope Amid Tears.

Composer Meira Warshauer loves Mozart's Symphony No. 40, but for her it feels incomplete...so she wrote her own piece to resolve a few spiritual and musical questions. On today's show, hear the Western Piedmont Symphony play Meira Warshauer's response and tribute to Mozart: As the Waters Cover the Sea.

One dreary day when he was studying abroad, oboist James Austin Smith received a gift, a ray of sunshine. James's father had written a special piece as a gift for his son. On today's show, James Austin Smith plays "Three Angularities" by his father, composer Larry Alan Smith. Plus, music by composers Missy Mazzoli, Louise Farrenc, and Asako Hirabayashi.

Hannah Lash knew from a young age that she wanted to be a composer, but she hadn't yet learned how to read or write music. So, Hannah developed her own system for writing music using triangles, squiggles, and x's. On today's show, hear pianist Jeremy Denk and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra play "In Pursuit of Flying," by American composer Hannah Lash.

When Michala Petri was three years old, her father gave her a little recorder as a present. Little Michala loved the challenge of making expressive music on this simple piece of wood. And for more than three decades now, Michala Petri has been one of the foremost recorder players in the world. On today's show, hear from a concert that Danish recorder player Michala Petri and guitarist Lars Hannibal presented to an online audience last summer.