Performance Today®

On Thursday's Performance Today, hear a small herd of contented cellos perform Joseph Jongen's "Two Pieces for Four Cellos," from a concert at the Grand Teton Music Festival.

It's one of the first exercises you learn to play on an instrument, one of the basic ways to build technique... and, it's awfully tempting to skip while practicing. Alexander Sitkovetsky shares his most valuable practice tip, on Wednesday's Performance Today.

Danish composer Carl Nielsen wrote his Symphony No. 5 in the early 1920s. It's a musical illustration of the eternal battle between darkness and light. On Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll hear Nielsen's Fifth Symphony from a recent concert in Ireland.

Jeremy Cohen, of Quartet San Francisco, says that one of their most popular pieces is a Michael Jackson medley. On Monday's Performance Today, Quartet San Francisco performs the medley at a concert in Edgartown, Massachusetts - on Martha's Vineyard.

Philip Glass is 81 years old, and has been an active composer for nearly 60 years. For Glass, the years mean nothing; the thrill of creating music -- and then hearing it performed -- never gets old. On this weekend's edition of Performance Today, hear the world premiere performance of the "Annunciation" Piano Quintet by Philip Glass, performed by pianist Paul Barnes and the Chiara Quartet.

Composer Maurice Greene and George Frederic Handel had a relatively pleasant relationship... until Greene got a job that Handel had wanted. On Friday's Performance Today, music by Maurice Greene, frenemy of George Frederic Handel.

Sergey Taneyev's Symphony No. 4 is a great piece of Romantic Russian music, and it's not played nearly often enough. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra play it in concert in Rotterdam.

Composer Jessie Montgomery says she's made an attempt to answer the question: "What does an anthem for the 21st century sound like in today's multi-cultural environment?" Hear Montgomery's answer - a rhapsody on the Star Spangle Banner - on the Wednesday's Performance Today.

In 1829, composer Felix Mendelssohn went on a walking tour of Scotland. He sent a musical sketch in a letter back to his family, and those notes turned out to be the beginnings of his "Scottish Symphony." Join us for Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3, on Tuesday's Performance Today.