Performance Today®

Do you know any couples who are always arguing and disagreeing, but it's also clear that they truly love each other? On today's show, hear music inspired by a couple just like that, from Shakespeare: The Piano Concerto No. 2 by Edward McDowell, with Andre Watts at the piano with the Nashville Symphony.

Our planet is teeming with life, and the rainforests are the lungs of the earth. Composer Meira Warshauer was moved by that image and the threats our natural world faces when she wrote her first symphony. It's a musical prayer for healing, for our home. On today's show, hear Warshauer's Symphony No. 1 "Living Breathing Earth", from a performance by the Western Piedmont Symphony in Hickory, NC.

Guitarist Brad Richter and cellist Viktor Uzur played together as the Richter Uzur Duo for 13 years. When Brad Richter got a terrible case of Lyme Disease, they navigated that challenge together. On this edition of Performance Today, hear their musical response to illness and recovery: Bitter the Laughter, Sweet the Tears.

Composer Jimmy Lopez was working on a piece when his father unexpectedly died. Suddenly, the music had deeper meaning for Lopez; he said it came to represent his father's transcendental journey. On Today's show, hear Guardian of the Horizon by Jimmy Lopez, from a concert presented by the St Paul Chamber Orchestra.

Join us for a PT debut... not of a composer or a performer, but a FESTIVAL. This is the first time we've broadcast a concert highlight from Midsummer's Music, which has been taking place in beautiful Door County, Wisconsin for almost 30 years. Also on today's show, Bruce Adolphe and this week's Piano Puzzler.

Imagine having a job interview in front of a thousand people. For some musicians, part of the hiring process often takes place in the concert hall, in front of an audience. On today's show, hear part of violinist Audrey Wright's audition for the role of Concertmaster, first violin, of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra.

The Minnesota Orchestra played a concert in the middle of March, with no audience in the house, but live on stage and live on the radio. On today's show, we have the story, then hear pianist Kirill Gerstein play Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 2 with the Minnesota Orchestra and conductor Juanjo Mena, all for an empty hall.

American composer Paul Wiancko wrote a piece named LIFT, his own personal "ode to joy...a journey of the soul." On this episode of Performance Today, hear the Aizuri Quartet give an inspired performance of LIFT by Paul Wiancko.

Composer Jim Stephenson grew up watching his father build model trains. They were detailed, realistic models, and each train car had its own personality. He was inspired by those vintage model trains when he wrote a piece for the ensemble ROCO. On today's show, hear ROCOmotive, by Jim Stephenson, from a ROCO concert in Houston, Texas.