American Public Media’s Performance Today® is America’s most popular classical music radio program and a winner of the 2014 Gabriel Award for artistic achievement. The show is broadcast on hundreds of public radio stations across the country, including at 1 p.m. central weekdays on Minnesota Public Radio. More information about our stations can be found at APM Distribution.
30 years ago, Louis Langree was warned about the addictive power of conducting. His mentor said "you won't be able to live without it"... and he was right. On today's show, Louis Langree conducts the Cincinnati Symphony in a recent concert performance of Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 4.
In 1808, the premiere of Beethoven's Choral Fantasy was less of a fantasy, and more of a nightmare. Find out why on Wednesday's Performance Today, and then hear a much more successful performance from a recent concert in Berlin.
When Remy van Kesteren was 5 years old, he heard something... and followed his ears to a harp. On today's episode of Performance Today, Remy van Kesteren tells of the sound that changed his life, and hear him perform in a concert in Barcelona, Spain.
At first, Rafal Blechacz didn't want to play piano. He had dreams of playing the organ... but he came to realize that the piano was the right instrument for him. We won't argue with that! On Monday's Performance Today, pianist Rafal Blechacz plays Brahms in concert with the Minnesota Orchestra and conductor Osmo Vanska.
It's a story of music inspired by a complicated love triangle and a song with mysterious power. Hear Joshua Bell play the "Poeme" by Ernest Chausson, on Saturday's Performance Today.
American composer John Adams says he's been obsessed with Beethoven's string quartets since he was a kid. In 2012, he took moments from those pieces and created a kind of mash-up for string quartet AND orchestra. On today's show, take a seat next to us at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and hear the results of Adams's work... 'Absolute Jest'.
Pianist Emanuel Ax has won seven Grammy Awards, an Avery Fisher Prize, and he's soloed with the New York Philharmonic more than a hundred times. On Thursday's Performance Today, Emanuel Ax gives a thrilling performance of Beethoven's last piano concerto, the Emperor Concerto.
Clarinetist Jon Manasse and pianist Jon Nakamatsu love making music together. On Wednesday's Peformance Today, hear them play "Four Views", a piece written for them by composer Gordon Goodwin.
On Tuesday's Performance Today, Louis Langree conducts the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra with pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. And then... Gavrylyuk gives a dazzling souped-up solo encore.
