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.

On a cold October night in 1893, Peter Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere of his sixth symphony in St. Petersburg, Russia. After the concert, Tchaikovsky gave the piece a nickname; a word that evokes pathos, deep emotional anguish. On Tuesday's Performance Today, hear the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra perform the "Pathetique" Symphony, the work that Tchaikovsky premiered just nine days before his death.

When guitarist Jason Vieaux was preparing for his debut with the Nashville Symphony, he told Nashville Public Radio "This is the most time I've ever spent on any piece of music, ever...That's how hard it is." Hear Vieaux play Leshnoff's Guitar Concerto with the Nashville Symphony on Monday's Performance Today.

Hispanic Heritage Month is getting underway and we're celebrating the musical side here at PT. On the weekend edition of Performance Today, cellist Gabriel Cabezas joins us to talk about visibility, music, and his musical hero.

Erie. Superior. Michigan. Huron. Ontario. Each of the Great Lakes has a distinct personality. Jeremy Turner was inspired by family vacations at the Great Lakes when he wrote a piece for mandolin and violin. On Friday's Performance Today, Chris Thile and James Ehnes play 'The Inland Seas' by Jeremy Turner.

On the day of a big audition, the young violinist Xiang Yu found that someone had taken luggage in the airplane and along with it, his dress clothes for the audition... so he wore sneakers and pajama pants. "It was an adventure," he said, "but luckily I got in." He is now on the roster of the prestigious Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's CMS Two roster. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll take you back to 2013, when Yu joined us in the studio as our PT Young Artist in Residence.