American Public Media’s Performance Today® is America’s most popular classical music radio program and a winner of the 2014 Gabriel Award for artistic achievement. The show is broadcast on hundreds of public radio stations across the country, including at 1 p.m. central weekdays on Minnesota Public Radio. More information about our stations can be found at APM Distribution.
Despite the need to stay physically apart these days, music has the power to unite us, to make us feel connected to our fellow humans. On Today's show, join us for a performance featuring Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir, a choir of more than 17,000 singers.
In 1932, George Gershwin enjoyed a vacation in Havana, Cuba. He came home with a set of bongos, a set of maracas, and inspiration for a new composition. On this episode of Performance Today we'll hear Gershwin's Cuban Overture, his souvenir from two weeks in Cuba.
Edward Elgar found it almost impossible to compose during the First World War. He said, "I cannot do any real work with this awful shadow hanging over us." But in 1918, he began writing a lament for a lost world. On today's show, hear Elgar's lament, his Cello Concerto in E Minor, from a concert in St. Petersburg, Russia.
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.
As a teacher, she's inspired hundreds of students. She's a talented flutist, a founder of groundbreaking ensembles, and she's a composer with a unique personal voice that speaks to all of us. On today's show, we celebrate Valerie Coleman, our PT Classical Woman of the Year.
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.
