Performance Today®

When cellist Raphael Bell was younger, he didn't like music by Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu. On Thursday's Performance Today, learn more about Bohuslav Martinu and why Raphael Bell now loves his music.

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

British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason had been planning to be in Los Angeles this past weekend. He was going to make his American concert debut, playing with the L.A. Chamber Orchestra, but he gave it up for a wedding gig... the British royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. On Tuesday's Performance Today, hear Sheku Kanneh-Mason's performance at the ceremony, alongside conductor Christopher Warren-Green and an all-star British orchestra.

After fighting in the Austrian army during the first World War, composer and violinist Fritz Kreisler moved to the US, where, initially, he did not receive a warm welcome. Kreisler missed his home in Vienna, and he wrote that sense of longing into music. On Monday's Performance Today, we'll hear his String Quartet in A minor, from a live performance at the Music@Menlo festival.

A wacky collection of 16 short pieces of music, each one imitating the sound of a musical instrument or an animal. It's the Capriccio Stravagante by Italian composer Carlo Farina. We'll hear it from the Music@Menlo Festival on this episode of Performance Today.

Ignacy Jan Paderewski was a dashing, virtuoso pianist around the turn of the 20th century. In 1919, he was the Prime Minister of Poland (his signature is on the Treaty of Versailles). On Friday's Performance Today, we'll hear Paderewski's Piano Concerto No. 1, from a concert in his hometown of Warsaw, Poland.

Not many pieces can match the romantic drama and sheer virtuosity of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. On Thursday's Performance Today, hear a thrilling concert performance by pianist Joyce Yang and the Nashville Symphony.

Thierry Escaich has been a church organist in Paris for more than 20 years. He plays hymns and chorales, and then improvises on those themes. On Wednesday's Performance Today, we'll hear Escaich's 21st Century twist on the old Lutheran tune, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. The piece is called 'Psalmos' by Thierry Escaich and is performed by the Cincinnati Symphony.

It's one of the great showpieces for violin, played by one of the finest violin soloists of our time. On Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll hear violinist Janine Jansen and the Oslo Philharmonic give an extraordinary performance of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major.