Performance Today®

Not your father's plastic recorder. Listen to the interview and the mellifluous sounds of four wooden recorders playing in harmony.

West Side Story has been an American musical theater classic for 56 years. On Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll hear a performance of Leonard Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story at Lincoln Center, a concert hall in the very New York neighborhood that inspired the story. Plus, a dear friend of Peter Tchaikovsky's writes touching music of remembrance after the composer's sudden death.

In 1992, Alina Pogostkina and her family moved from the recently collapsed Soviet Union to Heidelberg, Germany. They were broke so her family survived by playing music together on the streets. Twenty years later, Alina is a remarkable concert violinist. We'll hear her recent performance of the Korngold Violin Concerto in Belgium. On Monday's Performance Today, from APM.

El Sistema is a music education initiative started in Venezuela, a movement also rapidly growing in the United States. PT host Fred Child talks with Stanford Thompson, a national leader of El Sistema in America, about the impact of music education in our society. Plus, we'll hear an electrifying performance of tragic loss and star-crossed lovers in Tchaikovsky's Fantasy Overture to Romeo and Juliet from Leipzig, Germany. This weekend on Performance Today, from APM.

You'll find themes of forbidden love and tragic loss in William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. Those same themes were also present in Peter Tchaikovsky's own life, from which he found inspiration as he wrote music on Shakespeare's feuding families and star-crossed lovers. We'll hear an electrifying performance of the Fantasy Overture from Romeo and Juliet with Kurt Masur conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. On Friday's Performance Today, from APM.

With its potent mix of fury and fear, punctuated with hammering chords and explosive bass drum bangs, the Requiem Mass is one of Verdi's most striking choral works.

Celebrate Giuseppe Verdi's 200th birthday with Performance Today! Host Fred Child chats with Will Berger at the Metropolitan Opera about Verdi's impact and legacy in the world of opera. We'll also sit in on Verdi's epic Requiem Mass with the Chicago Symphony and Chorus with Ricardo Muti conducting. On Thursday's Performance Today, from APM.

El Sistema is a music education initiative started in Venezuela, a movement also rapidly growing in the United States. PT host Fred Child talks with Stanford Thompson, a national leader of El Sistema in America, about the impact of music education for society. Also on the show, this week's Piano Puzzler and music inspired from a scene at the 1889 World Exposition in Paris. On Wednesday's Performance Today, from APM.

Stanford Thompson is the Executive Director of "Play On Philly!," a music education program in Philadelphia. He's also the chair of the National Alliance of El Sistema-inspired Programs. He spoke with Fred Child about music education.