Performance Today®

Rachel Barton Pine is so much more than a violin soloist. This October, she is seeing the start of the next phase of her enormous, 15-year project that adds to her brand publisher, researcher, advocate and educator.

A few years ago, composer Osvaldo Golijov was in Israel and witnessed the effects of a wave of violence. A few weeks later, he found himself viewing images of our blue planet at a planetarium show in New York City. On Thursday's Performance Today, hear music inspired by contrasting perspectives: Tenebrae, by Osvaldo Golijov.

When Claude Debussy wrote music for the ballet "Jeux," he was picturing a game of tennis between two women and one young man. In tennis, "love" means nothing; in Debussy's music, love is everything. On Wednesday's Performance Today, we'll hear romance and seduction on the courts, from a concert by the New York Philharmonic.

Pianist Charlie Albright likes to make room for what he calls "the fun stuff." He dabbles in jazz and performs on-the-spot improvisations at most of his concerts. On Tuesday's Performance Today, hear Charlie Albright have some fun performing Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," from a concert with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.

Carl Maria von Weber wrote an entire movement of his Clarinet Quintet in ONE day...but then his creativity dried up. It took von Weber four years to finish the rest of it. Find out what finally gave him the kick in the pants to finish, on Monday's Performance Today.

If you're ready to step into a different world, follow us through medieval gates into a storybook world created by composer Anton Bruckner. On this weekend's Performance Today, Marek Janowski conducts the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in a concert performance of Bruckner's Symphony No. 4.

At the age of 70, Leos Janacek wrote a wind sextet recalling his youth as a choirboy at St. Thomas Abbey in the Czech city of Brno....the same abbey where Gregor Mendel famously experimented with the hereditary traits of pea plants. On Friday's Performance Today, we hear Janacek's musical recollection, Mladi (Youth), from a concert in Round Top, Texas.

Is it a tree? Is it a silk cloth? Is it a whip? It's music inspired by a famous parable about perspective. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll take you to a concert in Portland, Oregon, to hear "Aspects of an Elephant" by American composer Kenji Bunch.

In 1948, American composer William Grant Still was inspired by some poems about the natural beauty of the American South. On Wednesday's Performance Today, take a break with us and hear Houston's River Oaks Chamber Orchestra play "Wood Notes," William Grant Still's work of quiet musical contemplation.