Performance Today®

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.

Menahem Pressler learned to play piano as a boy in Germany, before he and his Jewish family were chased from the country in 1939. Much later, at age 90, Pressler made his debut appearance with the Berlin Philharmonic. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear Pressler and the Berlin Philharmonic in concert playing a Mozart Concerto.

Cellist Daniel Muller-Schott says that playing Dvorak's Cello Concerto is simultaneously tremendously challenging and deeply satisfying. On Wednesday's Performance Today, we'll take you to a recent concert in Paris featuring Daniel Muller-Schott playing alongside the Radio France Philharmonic.

It seems that Tchaikovsky never approved the published version of his famous Piano Concerto No. 1. So who did? On Tuesday's Performance Today, pianist Kirill Gerstein joins Fred in the studio with the story of the actual version that Tchaikovsky wanted us to hear.