Performance Today®

Composer Antonin Dvorak said it took very little effort to write his Piano Quartet No. 2. "It came easily," he said, "the melodies just surged upon me." On Monday's Performance Today, we'll hear violinist Daniel Hope and friends play those surging melodies in concert at the Savannah Music Festival.

Jessica Deutsch has studied violin in Cuba, Turkey, and France. She is also a student of Celtic, Mariachi, and Gypsy music. So what happens when she brings all of that together? We'll find out on this weekend's Performance Today, when we hear Jessica Deutsch and Ozere perform a new piece called "Anyplace."

Jessica Deutsch has studied violin in Cuba, Turkey, and France. She is also a student of Celtic, Mariachi, and Gypsy music. So what happens when she brings all of that together? We'll find out on Friday's Performance Today, when we hear Jessica Deutsch and Ozere perform a new piece called "Anyplace."

According to conductor JoAnn Falletta, the energy an audience provides can completely change a performance; it's certainly a key difference between a rehearsal and a performance. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic play Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 4 with a boost from the audience in Buffalo, NY.

Every week composer Bruce Adolphe joins us for a musical game; our Piano Puzzler. Bruce re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a great composer, and we get one of our listeners on the phone who tries to guess the hidden tune and the composer whose style Bruce is imitating. Play along with the Piano Puzzler, on Wednesday's Performance Today.

Pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin has a special affinity for composer Joseph Haydn. In part because, as Hamelin puts it, Haydn "...wasn't afraid to drop his pants once in a while." On Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll hear Canadian pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin play a cheeky Sonata by Haydn.

When Martin Luther King, Jr. and Duke Ellington met in 1963, they talked about American music and life. Nine years later, Duke Ellington wrote a composition, Three Black Kings, in honor of Dr. King. On Monday's Performance Today, we'll hear that piece from a concert in Buffalo, New York, as part of our celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Jens Kruger's composition, Lucid Dreamer, was inspired by the idea of not just of controlling dreams while you're in them, but of living all of life as a lucid dream. On this weekend's Performance Today, we'll hear new music by Jens Kruger for the combination of Appalachian strings and string quartet.

Julia Fischer was 12 years old the first time she played the solo part in Beethoven's Violin Concerto. On Friday's Performance Today, we'll hear how she sounds after twenty years of practice, when we go to Zurich, Switzerland to hear Fischer and the Tonhalle Orchestra play Beethoven in concert.