Performance Today®

Russian composer Mily Balakirev was a piano virtuoso, yet by the time he was nearly finished with one of his compositions, even HE couldn't play it. So he wrote easier alternate passages... just in case the original is too hard. On Friday's Performance Today, hear pianist Vadym Kholodenko give a wonderful performance of Islamey by Mily Balakirev.

Joseph Douglass, the favorite grandson of prominent American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, had a career in classical music that spanned more than three decades.

Every day during Black History Month, we'll highlight an African American composer or musician. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear about composer Florence Price, and a story about how a treasure trove of her work was rediscovered.

Cellist Alisa Weilerstein loves playing at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina; she says that it's a unique and very special kind of experience. On Wednesday's Performance Today, we'll take you to Charleston's Dock Street Theatre to hear Weilerstein perform with pianist Inon Barnatan and violinist Geoff Nuttall.

The Olmos Ensemble wants to make classical music accessible for everyone. One way is to let audience members choose how much to pay for tickets. People pay what they can... some a little more, some a little less. On Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll drop in on a concert in San Antonio, Texas, and hear the Olmos Ensemble perform a quintet by Anton Reicha.

Gustav Mahler destroyed nearly all the music he'd written as a teenager. But one piano quartet survives... written when he was just 15 years-old. On Monday's Performance Today, hear Mahler's youthful Piano Quartet in A minor, performed at the Music@Menlo festival.

Serge Koussevitzky was famous as a 20th century conductor, but he was also a composer... and a virtuoso on the double bass. On this weekend's Performance Today, hear Koussevitzky's double bass Concerto, with Robin Kesselman on double bass, in concert with the Houston Symphony.

Is it a tree? Is it a silk cloth? Is it a whip? It IS music inspired by a famous parable about perspective. On Friday'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In the early 1900s, composer Ralph Vaughan Williams came across an unpublished melody written over 300 years earlier. Williams then transormed that old tune into a gorgeous new piece of music. On Thursday's Performance Today, we get to hear it: "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" by Ralph Vaughan Williams, from a concert at the Grand Teton Music Festival.