Performance Today®

There's a big musical birthday party going on in Boston; the Handel and Haydn Society is turning 200 years old! On Wednesday's Performance Today, conductor Harry Christophers joins us to help mark this musical milestone. Plus, we'll hear selections from the Handel and Haydn Society's performance of Messiah.

In 1815, a group of Bostonians came together to form an ambitious music ensemble; they called themselves the Handel and Haydn Society. Nowadays, H+H has the distinction of being the oldest continuously performing music ensemble in the United States. Artistic Director Harry Christophers joins us to discuss the ensemble's history, their bicentennial celebration plans, and more.

Richard Wagner's operas are so dramatic, they're sometimes an inch away from self-parody. On Tuesday's Performance Today, the Cleveland Orchestra gives a serious (and seriously great) performance of the Ride of the Valkyries. Plus, we'll hear a bit of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd's take on Wagner as well.

You know how you sometimes put something down and then you just can't remember where you left it? It happens to us all -- even composers. In the 1760s, Joseph Haydn lost a cello concerto. And that concerto was missing until the 1960s -- two full centuries later! On Monday's Performance Today, we'll hear a performance of Haydn's long-lost Cello Concerto from a concert in Los Angeles.

Violinist Yoojin Jang hated practicing when she was a kid. But she always loved performing -- even if only for her mom in the kitchen. Jang is our newest Young Artist in Residence, and this weekend she'll join Fred in the studio to discuss her earliest kitchen performances and to play music by Jean Sibelius.

Violinist Yoojin Jang hated practicing when she was a kid. But she always loved performing -- even if only for her mom in the kitchen. Jang is our newest Young Artist in Residence, and on Friday she'll join Fred in the studio to discuss her earliest kitchen performances and more.

On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear two musical pictures about nature; both are delicate late Romantic masterpieces. Plus Yoojin Jang, our newest Young Artist, joins us for day two of her PT residency.

On Wednesday's PT, we'll meet our brand new Young Artist in Residence -- violinist Yoojin Jang. She'll join Fred in the studio for conversation and music, including a performance of Schumann's Violin Sonata No. 1.

Listen to in-studio interviews with host Fred Child and exclusive musical performances by violinist Yoojin Jang.