Performance Today®

The 2014 Ojai Music Festival took place Thursday, June 12 through Sunday, June 15. This year, the California-based festival offered live and archival HD video streaming of all concert performances.

Ivan Fischer believes that a conductor should never behave like a dictator; music-making should be a joyous activity. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra give a joyous performance of music by Dvorak.

On Wednesday's Performance Today, we'll celebrate German composer Richard Strauss' 150th birthday. We'll hear legendary violinist Arnold Steinhardt perform Strauss' Dreams in the Twilight, plus a caller from Kodiak, Alaska will take a crack at solving this week's Piano Puzzler.

Paul McCartney wrote Blackbird during the era of the civil rights movement. On Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll hear Time for Three perform an emotional new arrangement of this iconic piece.

It took Johannes Brahms almost two decades to finish his first symphony; the great German composer was afraid he couldn't live up to standards set by Ludwig van Beethoven. But Brahms did eventually find his answer to the looming shadow of Beethoven, which we'll hear on Monday's Performance Today.

On this weekend's Performance Today, Bruce Adolphe has this week's Piano Puzzler. Play along with our musical game; see if you can name the hidden tune and the composer whose style Bruce is imitating.

If you find out that the great Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes is coming to your town, you should book your ticket right away. Recently, Andsnes played an incredible, sold-out solo concert at Carnegie Hall in New York; a highlight of the season for piano fans in the big city. On Friday's Performance Today we'll hear one of his encores from that concert - a Spanish Dance by Enrique Granados.

Maurice Ravel wrote his Mother Goose Suite as piano pieces for children. But then he realized that fairy tales aren't just for children, and he turned the music into a lush piece for full orchestra. On Thursday's Performance Today we'll hear a Ravel's Mother Goose Orchestral Suite performed by the New York Philharmonic.

On Wednesday's Performance Today, Bruce Adolphe has this week's Piano Puzzler. Play along with our musical game; see if you can name the hidden tune and the composer whose style Bruce is imitating. And we'll drop in on a concert in Dallas, for music by Richard Wagner.