Performance Today®

Chris Thile is one of the most inventive and talented mandolin players on the bluegrass scene today. His band, the Punch Brothers, has appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and on the PBS series Austin City Limits. But Chris Thile is also a huge fan of music by Johann Sebastian Bach. On Friday's Performance Today, Chris Thile talks about how he discovered Bach, the music that he says "fires on all cylinders" with a special immediacy, emotional intensity and clarity of intent.

American composer Samuel Barber wrote his Adagio for Strings in 1936 and it has become one of the most beloved pieces in American music. Barber knew right away that he had created something special. He wrote to a friend: "I have just finished a slow movement...and it's a knockout!" It might seem a little incongruous that Barber used a boxing metaphor for his piece that touches the very depth of the human soul. But he was right. Barber's Adagio became a favorite right away. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear the story behind Barber's Adagio and a performance of it from a concert in Athens, Georgia.

It was the shock heard around the world. Well, around the *classical* music world anyway. This June, 26 year-old Italian pianist Alessandro Deljavan, an audience favorite, was eliminated after the semi-final round of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. On Wednesday's Performance Today, we'll hear from Deljavan's final concert at Van Cliburn competition and find out how a pianist picks himself up, and tries again.

Flutist Sir James Galway is 73 years old now, and some think he's playing better than ever. He's sold more than 30 million albums. He has a big beautiful home looking out across a lake in Switzerland. Galway could easily relax. But what's he doing right now? Galway just finished leading an intensive two week long flute festival and now he's busy rehearsing for a big concert tour. On Tuesday's Performance Today we'll hear from the flutist who likes to stay busy. Sir James Galway and friends play a set of three tunes from Ireland in concert in Athens, Georgia.

One morning, Antonin Dvorak was walking in the woods, and noticed a beautiful song coming from a bird he described as red with black wings. He was so inspired by that simple bird song, he wrote a string quartet with that little melody. But what bird was it? On Monday's Performance Today, we'll do some ornithological sleuthing to figure out what bird that was and we'll hear the Jupiter Quartet in concert at the Skaneateles Festival in New York.

Violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg talks with us about everything from the Aspen Festival to A-Rod. Plus, 19 year-old cellist Nathan Chan makes his PT debut. Highlights from our week in Residence at the Aspen Music Festival, on this weekend's Performance Today.

The faculty at the Aspen Music Festival are some of the best in the business. Listen to their performance at Harris Hall.

Listen to the young pianist's performance and interview on stage at the Aspen Music Festival.

When pianist Adria Ye was 11 years old, she and her family moved from her home just outside Portland, Oregon to New York City. She became a student at the Juilliard School, one of the great music conservatories in the world. On Friday's Performance Today, Adria Ye will make her PT debut on stage in Aspen with a Tarantelle by Franz Liszt.