Performance Today®

Listen to in-studio interviews with pianist and violinist Ray Ushikubo and host Fred Child as well as exclusive musical performances.

According to conductor JoAnn Falletta, many orchestras only explore the tip of the musical iceberg, leaving a vast amount of repertoire quietly boxed away. On Tuesday's Performance Today, Falletta joins Fred in the studio to co-host a special hour of PT, and to discuss her thoughts on musical repertoire, conducting, and more.

Pianist Garrick Ohlsson feels that Chopin's music is more about visceral feeling than intellectual understanding, though Chopin's intellect was penetrating and brilliant. On Monday's Performance Today, we'll hear Ohlsson perform a Chopin Ballade from a concert at The Cliburn, in Fort Worth, TX.

Every week Bruce Adolphe re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a classical composer. We get a listener on the phone, and they try to name the hidden tune and the composer whose style Bruce is mimicking. On Saturday's PT, we have TWO listeners on the line... and they're celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary!

When composer Leos Janacek was 70 years old, he wrote a wind sextet recalling his youth as a choirboy at St. Thomas Abbey in the Czech city of Brno. The monastery also happens to be where Gregor Mendel studied some very important pea plants... and the principals of genetic inheritance. On Friday's PT, we hear Janacek's musical recollection, Mladi (Youth), in a concert at Festival Hall in Round Top, Texas.

In a recent concert in Vienna, pianist Yefim Bronfman was set to perform a Bartok piano concerto. There was a bit of a problem, what could be a significant problem for a pianist... he'd just gotten a bad cut on his finger. A polished professional, Bronfman insisted on going through with the performance, despite the pain and continued bleeding. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear Bronfman give a less sticky performance of Bela Bartok's Piano Concerto No. 3, with the London Symphony Orchestra and conductor Valery Gergiev.

Every week Bruce Adolphe re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a classical composer. We get a listener on the phone, and they try to name the hidden tune and the composer whose style Bruce is mimicking. On Wednesday's Performance Today, we have TWO listeners on the line... and they're celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary!

In 1830, French composer Hector Berlioz finished writing an innovative program symphony, his Symphonie Fantastique. It's an autobiographical piece for orchestra... the story of a young artist and his insatiable love for the perfect woman. On Tuesday's Performance Today, Andres Orozco-Estrada conducts the Houston Symphony in a performance of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique.

Two years ago, the Artemis Quartet experienced the tragic loss of one of their own. On Monday's Performance Today, the story of how they were able to carry on. Then, hear the Artemis Quartet in a concert from the Union College Concert Series in Schenectady, New York.