Performance Today®

In 2013, at the age of 30, Caroline Shaw won the Pulitzer Prize for music. Her ambition and expressive ability as a composer have only continued to grow. On Thursday's Performance Today, hear the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra perform new music by Caroline Shaw: Entr'acte for String Orchestra.

Back in the 1980s, Ani Kavafian had the opportunity to play one of Arno Babajanian's trios with the composer himself, and she came away with some secrets. On Wednesday's Performance Today, Kavafian shares a few of those secrets with Fred, and we'll hear a concert performance of Babajanian's "Trio in F sharp minor for Piano, Violin and Cello."

At 37 years old, composer Angelica Negron is well into adulthood. But her memories of childhood are a vital part of her grown-up creations. She's fascinated by childhood not for its simplicity, but for the complexity. On Performance Today, we'll hear one of Negron's latest compositions that's tinged with nostalgia both sweet and a little tart.

Composer Arnold Schoenberg liked the Piano Quartet No. 1 by Johannes Brahms, but he decided that it needed a few changes. Schoenberg arranged the quartet for orchestra and threw out the piano part entirely. On Monday's Performance Today, hear Schoenberg's orchestral makeover of the Brahms's Piano Quartet No. 1, from a concert at the Aspen Music Festival.

Francisco Nunez is the artistic director and founder of the Young People's Chorus of New York City (YPC), an ensemble with a mission to provide children of all cultural and economic backgrounds with music education. Learn more about Francisco Nunez and the YPC on the weekend edition of Performance Today.

When Hassan Anderson was in high school, he played a loaner oboe from the school. His mother Carolyn realized that he was too talented to be playing on a cheap oboe, and she made a big sacrifice - she sold her car to buy his first professional oboe. On Friday's Performance Today, hear Hassan Anderson and pianist Eliran Avni perform at a concert in Colorado Springs.

Jonathan Vinocour earned a degree in chemistry from Princeton and then began working at a hospital. All the while, Vinocour played the viola for fun, as a hobby. How did his hobby develop into his passion and his career? On switching from chemistry to concertos, Jonathan Vinocour's story, on Thursday's Performance Today.

Francisco Nunez is the artistic director and founder of the Young People's Chorus of New York City (YPC), an ensemble with a mission to provide children of all cultural and economic backgrounds with music education. Learn more about Francisco Nunez and the YPC on Wednesday's Performance Today.

We're celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month! We had the honor of speaking to Francisco Nunez, a choral conductor who won a 2011 MacArthur Genius Grant, to name one accolade, but his accomplishments are vast. Listen to this excerpt of their conversation in which Mr. Nunez tells us about what got him started, his musical idols, and role models.