Performance Today®

Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 might be the most popular piece of classical music from the last century and a half. And on Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll hear it played by Lang Lang, who just might be the most popular classical pianist on the planet at the moment.

Pianist Steven Osborne practices, of course. But he also believes in sometimes getting away from music, in order to broaden his life and avoid impoverishing his musical voice. On Monday's Performance today, we'll hear Osborne give a live performance of several etudes by Rachmaninoff.

The principal cellist, principal violist, and principal associate concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic have put together their own band. They call themselves...what else? The New York Principals. On this weekend's Performance Today, we'll drop in on a recent concert in Palm Beach to hear them play Schubert.

According to conductor Leonard Slatkin, the degree of success that Tchaikovsky achieved is even more remarkable than most people realize. On Friday's Performance Today, we'll hear Slatkin conduct the Detroit Symphony in Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave.

We will celebrate St. Patrick's Day with a musical tribute to the Emerald Isle...but with a twist. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear two pieces of Irish music without the brogue; the sounds of old Ireland as imagined by American composers John Williams and Chris Brubeck.

Each week on our Piano Puzzler, composer Bruce Adolphe re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a classical composer. We then get one of our listeners on the phone to try to guess the tune and the composer whose style Bruce is imitating. Play along with our Piano Puzzler, on Wednesday's Performance Today.

Between 1830 and 1840, thousands of Native Americans were removed from their homes in the Southeast and forcibly relocated rural Oklahoma by the U.S. government. The long, brutal walk became known as the Trail of Tears. More than 175 years after the march, composer Michael Daugherty wanted to share the survivors' and descendants' stories.

The principal cellist, principal violist, and principal associate concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic have put together their own band. They call themselves...what else? The New York Principals. On Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll drop in on a recent concert in Palm Beach to hear them play Schubert.

Mozart wrote his Concerto for Two Pianos for himself and his sister to play with an orchestra. On Monday's Performance Today, we'll hear Jeffrey Kahane and Joanne Pearce Martin perform it alongside the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.