Performance Today®

Daniel Handler can choose the perfect music for ANY situation... just ask.

His fans call him Lemony Snicket. His parents call him Daniel, and they raised him on a diet of classical music. On this Friday's Performance Today, Lemony Snicket joins Fred in the studio with some of his favorite pieces of music.

This spring, the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels featured a dozen pianists in the final round; Lukas Vondracek was the winner. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear his dazzling final round performance of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 begins with the most famous four notes in music, and then continues on an epic thirty minute journey from darkness to light. On Wednesday's Performance Today, we'll hear Andres Orozco-Estrada lead the Houston Symphony in concert in Beethoven's Fifth.

During a trip down the Nile, French composer Camille Saint-Saens was captivated by an old Nubian song. In fact, he was so inspired by the tune that he transformed it into a piano concerto. On Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll hear pianist Stephen Hough and the Nashville Symphony play that very piece; Saint-Saens' Egyptian Concerto.

When Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 1 premiered in 1894, one critic said it was "ruthless but innocent - like a child playing with dynamite." On Monday's Performance Today, we'll hear Nielsen's dangerously fun symphony from a concert at the Aspen Music Festival.

Trolls, goblins, and gnomes. On Friday's Performance Today, we'll join them all in the Hall of the Mountain King, when we hear Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite performed at the Artosphere Festival. Then, we'll head to New York to hear two special pieces: one old, one new...but both blue.

Trolls, goblins, and gnomes - we'll join them all in the Hall of the Mountain King. On Friday's Performance Today, we'll hear Edvard Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite; plus, pianist Joyce Yang plays Grieg's Piano Concerto in concert at the Aspen Festival.

It's not every orchestral concert that gets covered by news outlets around the world -- but this was the first American orchestra to play in Cuba since the restoration of diplomatic ties with the U.S. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear from the Minnesota Orchestra's historic concert in Havana, Cuba.