Performance Today®

As they stood with her five-hundred-pound, 8-foot-long marimba, Fred Child asked PT Young Artist Jisu Jung if she ever wished that she played the flute. On Friday's Performance Today, we'll hear her answer, plus more of her in studio conversation with Fred.

In 2012, marimba soloist Jisu Jung didn't speak a word of English. And at that time, she already had a rich musical life in Korea. So why did she decide to move to Baltimore to study at the Peabody Institute? As Jung puts it, she "just wanted to see the bigger world." On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear lots more from our new PT Young Artist, Jisu Jung.

Jisu Jung began playing piano, flute, violin, and marimba when she was just three years old. But when she turned five, her mom told her that she had to choose one -- so she did. On Wednesday's Performance Today, Jisu Jung joins Fred in the studio as the first marimba soloist to be featured as a PT Young Artist in Residence.

Listen to in-studio interviews with host Fred Child and exclusive musical performances by marimbist Jisu Jung.

In 1994, budding clarinetist Anthony McGill was on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, talking with Mister Rogers about why he chose the clarinet. Even at that young age, McGill knew that the clarinet was the instrument for him. Years later, he's now principal clarinet in the New York Philharmonic. On Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll hear Anthony McGill play music by Scriabin.

According to conductor Leonard Slatkin, leading an orchestra is a bit like being the coach of a football team. On Monday's Performance Today, Coach Slatkin will tell us more about the curious art of conducting; plus, we'll hear from a recent concert featuring Slatkin and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Menahem Pressler learned to play piano as a boy in Germany, before he and his Jewish family escaped in 1939. This winter, at age 91, Pressler played a concert with the Berlin Philharmonic; German Chancellor Angela Merkel was in the audience. On this weekend's Performance Today, we'll hear from that extraordinary concert.

The trombone players of the Buffalo Philharmonic asked composer Eric Ewazen if he would write something especially for them. Ewazen loved the idea and came up with his Triple Concerto for Three Trombones and Orchestra. On Friday's Performance Today, we'll go to Buffalo to hear it in concert.

Saturday, March 21, 2015, marks Bach's 330th birthday. Cellist Dale Henderson will spend that day just as he has since Bach's 225th birthday: in a New York City subway station playing Bach's music. Henderson joins Fred Child to discuss his Bach in the Subways Project.