American Public Media’s Performance Today® is America’s most popular classical music radio program and a winner of the 2014 Gabriel Award for artistic achievement. The show is broadcast on hundreds of public radio stations across the country, including at 1 p.m. central weekdays on Minnesota Public Radio. More information about our stations can be found at APM Distribution.
When he was five years old, Avi Avital's mother asked him which musical instrument he would like to play. The Avital family had an upstairs neighbor who practiced the mandolin; Avi didn't hesitate for a moment in choosing the same instrument. 30 years later, he's on top of the classical mandolin world. We'll hear Avi Avital in concert on Monday's Performance Today.
In honor of his 300th birthday, we'll celebrate the life and remarkably inventive music of composer Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach on this weekend's Performance Today.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was born 300 years ago this week. On Friday's Performance Today we'll celebrate his life and his remarkably inventive music.
Composer Leos Janacek had a bad case of writer's block. One day, he heard the family maid suddenly burst into laughter; she had been reading a newspaper cartoon about a fox and her friends. On Thursday's Performance Today we'll hear music inspired by this laughter from the next room: the orchestral suite from Janacek's opera 'The Cunning Little Vixen'.
In 1932, George Gershwin took a vacation to Havana, Cuba. He came home with a set of bongos, a set of maracas, and inspiration for a new composition. On Wednesday's Performance Today we'll hear Gershwin's Cuban Overture, his souvenir from two "hysterical" weeks in Cuba.
Are three heads better than one? Bach wrote his Goldberg variations for a single pianist to play, but a trio of string players have worked out a clever reinvention. On Tuesday's Performance Today we'll hear that music from a concert in Angel Fire, New Mexico.
Monday's Performance Today features music and conversation with pianist and Beethoven enthusiast Jonathan Biss. Biss will discuss his upcoming online music course, and we'll hear him perform a Beethoven piano sonata.
Sign up for pianist Jonathan Biss's free online course about Beethoven's piano sonatas.
Composer Maurice Ravel was a dear friend of the Gaudin family. When World War One began, the brothers Pascal and Pierre Gaudin proudly signed up for the French army. On the day the brothers arrived at the front, they were both killed by a single German shell. On this weekend's Performance Today we'll hear Le Tombeau de Couperin, a piece that Ravel wrote in memory of his friends Pierre and Pascal.
