Performance Today®

Heitor Villa-Lobos dedicated many pieces to "Mindinha," the nickname of his companion and life partner for 23 years. On today's show, hear "Ciranda das Sete Notas," one of the many pieces Villa-Lobos dedicated to Mindinha.

A huge mysterious creature lurks below the surface of a clear and tranquil lake. It may or may not be dangerous...it's hard to tell. On today's show, you'll hear that creature's presence in The Enchanted Lake, by Russian composer Anatoly Lyadov.

In pop music, it's Beyonce and Jay-Z. Here in the classical world, the big power couple is Wu Han and David Finckel. They're musical visionaries, mentors, and chamber musicians with incredible chemistry. On today's episode, they'll play a piece that Bruce Adolphe wrote for them, simply titled "Couple."

JoAnn Falletta grew up playing classical guitar, but what she really wanted to do was conduct orchestras. There wasn't a path for a female conductor to follow... so Falletta paved a path of her own and is now a respected conductor around the world. On today's show, JoAnn Falletta conducts the Buffalo Philharmonic in a concert performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21.

After composer Ethel Smythe toured the coast of England, she became fascinated by the history of "wrecking," where villagers on the coast would lure ships onto the rocks and plunder the wrecked vessels. On this episode of Performance Today, hear Ethel Smythe's overture from The Wreckers, performed by ROCO at a recent concert in Houston, Texas.

Around the world, November 11th is Remembrance Day or Armistice Day, and here in the U.S., we celebrate it as Veterans Day. On this episode of Performance Today, we'll honor those who've served our country in uniform.

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.

Recently, Elizabeth Weinfield and her friends in the early music group Sonnambula stumbled across music by a long-forgotten composer. The works were written in the mid 1600s by a Flemish woman named Leonora Duarte. On this episode of Performance Today, hear Sonnambula perform 6 of Leonora Duarte's short Sinfonias.

When Arturo Marquez was a teenager in Mexico in the 1960s, he played in a Mariachi band. He went to school and became a composer of orchestral music, but he's still especially fond of a dance from the city of Veracruz, Mexico. On today's episode of Performance Today, hear the Danzon No. 2 by Arturo Marquez, from a concert at the Aspen Music Festival.