Performance Today®

There's a photo from 1961, with the young Fidel Castro sitting at a table in a restaurant with his entourage, with four musicians standing behind them. The photo inspired Ricardo Lorenz to compose a work of music that steps along the border of lively dance music and bleak tension. Hear the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra perform the world premiere of Dance Unlikely (Baile Improbable), on this weekend's Performance Today.

There's a photo from 1961, with the young Fidel Castro sitting at a table in a restaurant with his entourage, with four musicians standing behind them. The photo inspired Ricardo Lorenz to compose a work of music that steps along the border of lively dance music and bleak tension. Hear the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra perform the world premiere of Dance Unlikely (Baile Improbable), on Friday's Performance Today.

Composer and conductor Renee Baker is an accomplished violist and the founding music director of the Chicago Modern Orchestra Project.

Pianist Garrick Ohlsson feels that Frederic Chopin was a brilliant intellect, but he thinks Chopin's music is more about visceral feeling than intellectual understanding. On Thursday's Performance Today, hear Ohlsson perform a Chopin scherzo from a concert in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Bach Collegium Japan (BCJ) have become widely known and sought-after for playing Baroque music with period instruments. On Wednesday's Performance Today, hear members of the BCJ perform a flute sonata by J. S. Bach, featuring Kiyomi Suga on baroque wood flute.

The 5 Browns have a goal of introducing classical music to a wider, more diverse audience. They perform in various combinations, from duos to complex five-piano arrangements. On Tuesday's Performance Today, hear The 5 Browns perform an arrangement of The Planets by Gustav Holst, from a concert in Athens, Georgia.

Mozart Guarnieri's father was an opera buff who named his kids after composers... his brothers were named Rossine and Verde. On Monday's Performance today, take a seat at Lincoln Center for a performance of "Three Dances for Orchestra" by Brazilian composer Mozart Camargo Guarnieri.

In 2013, Pianist and composer Tatev Amiryan wrote an engaging work for solo piano, inspired by Armenian folk music. On the weekend edition of Performance Today, hear Amiryan perform her composition, Ortus, at a concert in Kansas City.

A month after he became a U.S. citizen, composer Igor Stravinsky wrote his Symphony in Three Movements. The New York Philharmonic premiered the piece in 1946; on Friday's Performance Today, we'll hear a much more recent performance by that same ensemble.