Poster Fred Child
Fred Child
MPR

Performance Today®

with host Fred Child

All Episodes

Match wits with Bruce Adolphe

Match wits with Bruce Adolphe

Each week on our Piano Puzzler, composer Bruce Adolphe re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a great composer. Then, one of our listeners calls in and tries to guess two things: the tune, and the composer whose style Bruce is mimicking. Play along with our weekly musical game, on Wednesday's Performance Today.

Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge

Variations on a theme of Frank Bridge

Conductor Jeffrey Kahane loves Britten's Variations on a theme by Frank Bridge. He says that it's simultaneously majestic, mysterious, sentimental, hilarious, heartbreaking, dazzlingly cerebral, and in the end, profound. On Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll hear it from a concert in Los Angeles.

Happy Birthday, Ginastera!

Happy Birthday, Ginastera!

Composer Alberto Ginastera was born one hundred years ago today. On Monday's Performance Today, we'll say feliz cumpleaños to the great Argentine composer, and we'll hear pianist Joyce Yang play his Argentine Dances in concert in Aspen.

Kavafian plays Khachaturian

Kavafian plays Khachaturian

Violinist Ani Kavafian loves Aram Khachaturian's Trio for Clarinet, Violin and Piano. On this weekend's Performance Today she'll introduce it, and play it with a couple of friends at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Gabriel Kahane's The Fiction Issue

Gabriel Kahane's The Fiction Issue

Gabriel Kahane is a composer of music who thinks an awful lot like a writer of literature. On Friday's Performance Today, we'll explore his song cycle, The Fiction Issue, and Kahane will join us to discuss his inspiration for these musical short stories.

Arno Babajanian's secrets

Arno Babajanian's secrets

Ani Kavafian had the opportunity to play one of Arno Babajanian's trios with the composer himself, and she came away with some secrets. On Thursday's Performance Today, Kavafian will join Fred to share a few of those secrets as well as music by Babajanian.

Ani Kavafian

Ani Kavafian

Violinist Ani Kavafian loves Aram Khachaturian's Trio for Clarinet, Violin and Piano. On Wednesday's Performance Today she'll introduce it, and play it with a couple of friends at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Rachel Barton Pine and dancing to Bach

Rachel Barton Pine and dancing to Bach

It's an enduring musical question: is it okay to dance to Johann Sebastian Bach? American violinist Rachel Barton Pine says yes. On Tuesday's Performance Today, she'll join Fred in the studio to explain her rationale, and to play dance music by Bach.

CMS Two's Late Night Rose sessions

CMS Two's Late Night Rose sessions

A popular feature of CMS Two performances is the Late Night Rose sessions - a series of shows above Lincoln Center in the intimate Rose Studio. PT was honored to host the most recent Late Night Rose event back in March. Come listen to an excerpt from that concert, plus interviews with the several performers including Ani Kavafian, Michael Brown and Gloria Chien.