Performance Today®

In 2014, composer Jonathan Bailey Holland was grappling with profound sadness about the number of Black Americans killed by police. He couldn't express his feelings in words, so he turned to music. On today's show, hear the world premiere concert performance of Dream Elegy by Jonathan Bailey Holland.

When Marie Therese Coin Coin was granted her freedom in 1778, she used her business skills to become a landowner, with the goal of purchasing her children's freedom. Composer Jason Moran is Coin Coin's great-great-grand-nephew. On today's show, hear the Imani Winds play "Cane" by Jason Moran - music inspired by Maran's family history.

In 2015, nine people were killed at a church in Charleston, SC. On today's show, the Dallas Winds plays a piece written to honor the lives of those who died: Of Our New Day Begun, by Omar Thomas.

Join us for a concert highlight from from the base of the Teton Range in Wyoming. On today's show, conductor Donald Runnicles leads the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra in a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9.

A few weeks ago, the Lakes Area Music Festival in Minnesota did an online concert with a theme of remembering those we've lost due to the pandemic. On today's show, join us for a highlight from that concert: Requiem Milonga by Valerie Coleman.

In 2015, nine people were killed at a church in Charleston, SC. On today's show, the Dallas Winds plays a piece written to honor the lives of those who died: Of Our New Day Begun, by Omar Thomas.

Composer Joel Puckett's grandfather-in-law always had the right line of poetry for any situation...including his poignant final words. On this episode of Performance Today, hear music inspired by the final words of a loved one: It Perched for Vespers Nine, by Joel Puckett.

Bruce Adolphe reveals all of the secrets of the Piano Puzzler with Fred Child on 'Performance Today.'

In the 1940s, Composer John Harbison grew up in a musical family in New Jersey. The Harbisons would gather around the piano and sing together. John Harbison had those memories in mind when he wrote a set of pieces called "Songs America Loves to Sing." On today's show, we'll hear it from a concert in Athens, Georgia.