Performance Today®

Leonard Slatkin says conducting gives him a sense of great power and at the same time, a feeling of helplessness. On Thursday's Performance Today, Slatkin joins us to talk about the curious art of conducting. Plus, we'll hear him lead this performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 4. in a concert from Warsaw, Poland.

The International Space Orchestra is a band where you can find astronauts, space scientists, and NASA flight directors all gathered around the very same piece of music. International Space Orchestra founder Nelly Ben Hayoun and NASA Ames Flight Director Rusty Hunt join Ria Misra on the Music is Music podcast today, to talk about music, space, and the ISO's Apollo 11 space opera.

When Claude Debussy wrote music for the ballet "Jeux," he was picturing a game of tennis between two young women and one young man. In tennis, "love" means nothing; in Debussy's music, love is everything. On Wednesday's Performance Today, we'll hear romance and seduction on the courts, from a concert by the New York Philharmonic.

Beethoven's Eroica Symphony is a monumental work. On Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll hear it from a monumentally beautiful place; Festival Mozaic in San Luis Obispo, California - right between the ocean and the mountains.

If you've ever been to a concert by the Canadian Brass, you've noticed that they violate a cardinal rule of men's fashion. They wear white athletic sneakers with formal black pants. On Monday's Performance today, we have music from the Canadian Brass and the secret behind their fashion faux-pas.

He's still in his 20s, but conductor Joshua Weilerstein is already making a tremendous impression on orchestras and audiences around the world. On this weekend's Performance Today, Joshua Weilerstein leads the Verbier Festival Orchestra in Saint-Saens' Violin Concerto No. 3, featuring Joshua Bell.

He's still in his 20s, but conductor Joshua Weilerstein is already making a tremendous impression on orchestras and audiences around the world. On Friday's Performance Today, Joshua Weilerstein leads the Verbier Festival Orchestra in Saint-Saens' Violin Concerto No. 3, featuring Joshua Bell.

Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero has been playing the Piano Concerto by Edvard Grieg since she was 11 years old... her original copy of the music is decorated with the Hello Kitty stickers. Montero is now 46, and she just recently bought a new copy of the music. On Thursday's Performance Today, the ever-youthful Gabriela Montero performs Grieg's Piano Concerto with the Houston Symphony, Andres Orozco-Estrada conducting.

London-based composer Arthur Jeffes joins Ria Misra, host of the second season of our Music is Music podcast, to kick things off with a two-part episode on music in space.