Performance Today®

When Napoleon's army attacked Vienna in 1809, Beethoven took cover in a basement. When he emerged, he found that his piano and the music he'd been working on were still intact. He got right back to it and finished the piece. On today's show, hear a composition that survived Napoleon troops: the Piano Concerto No. 5, widely known as the Emperor Concerto, by Ludwig van Beethoven..

Due to current circumstances, Performance Today has adapted the concert content from its Young Artist in Residence Program to provide virtual learning experiences in their new series "Performance Today in the Classroom." Today's PT in the Classroom Music Lesson features PT Young Artist in Residence Lauren Anker.

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...and not even a pandemic will keep us from doing it again this year! Today, we're thrilled to kick off this year's series with French horn player Lauren Anker.

We're proud to introduce you to horn player Lauren Anker, the first of our 2021 Young Artists in Residence. Lauren recently joined us from Houston for conversation and music. You can hear it all here!

We've all heard the phrase "all of a sudden." Composer Michael Kurth wonders if we could add some more gradations and subtlety to that. On this episode of Performance Today, hear Kurth's string quartet titled "Some of a Sudden."

The Shanghai Chinese Orchestra is an orchestra that combines Western cellos and basses with traditional Chinese instruments. On today's show, hear the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra perform a beautiful concerto by Chinese composer Han Wenhe, from a recent concert in Shanghai.

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.

The Calidore String Quartet recently marked 10 years of playing music together. On today's show, hear how they're pushing forward and staying positive during the pandemic, then hear their gorgeous performance of Beethoven's String Quartet No. 4.

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.