Performance Today®

Every week Performance Today features music written in the 21st Century. This week, we'll hear the world premiere performance of a piece Magnus Lindberg wrote to celebrate Alan Gilbert's first concert as music director of the New York Philharmonic. Lindberg is a Finnish composer. His piece is called EXPO. We'll hear that music signalling a brand new era from a live concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.

On Thursday's Performance Today we'll hear a concert performance that is precise and polished. But it only got this way through professional disagreement. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has no conductor. Members of the orchestra lead rehearsals and everyone gets their say. Tune in to hear the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra perform Schubert's Symphony No. 4 at Carnegie Hall.

Jean-Fery Rebel was a prodigy and a progressive. In France in the late 1600s and early 1700s, he pushed and prodded and stretched the conventions of music, from the time he was an 8 year-old boy wonder on the violin through his long and productive life as a composer. He could do it with authority, since he was a virtuoso on just about every instrument. On Wednesday's Performance Today we'll hear a trio by the musical rabble-rouser Rebel.

They are a truly global all-star orchestra. On Tuesday's Performance Today we'll hear a performance by the World Orchestra for Peace with players from the Berlin Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic. In fact, musicians from more than 70 orchestras, from more than 40 countries, join together a few times a year to reaffirm "the unique strength of music as an ambassador for peace." Tune in to hear Valery Gergiev conduct the World Orchestra for Peace in concert in Chicago.

What if Joseph Haydn had written the Happy Birthday song? Or Ludwig van Beethoven? On Monday's Performance Today we'll hear composer Peter Heidrich's Variations on the Happy Birthday song which he has written in the style of a dozen different composers. Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg leads the New Century Chamber Orchestra in that performance. Also, tune in to find out what makes Happy Birthday one of the most expensive songs to perform.

For ten years, Pablo Ziegler played piano with the legendary tango composer Astor Piazzolla. Today, Ziegler is a tango composer well-respected in his own right, often combining classical, jazz and tango traditions. On Friday's Performance Today, our featured 21st century piece is a new tango suite by Pablo Ziegler called Suite Canyengue.

For ten years, Pablo Ziegler played piano with the legendary tango composer Astor Piazzolla. Today, Ziegler is a tango composer well-respected in his own right, often combining classical, jazz and tango traditions. On Friday's Performance Today, our featured 21st century piece is a new tango suite by Pablo Ziegler called Suite Canyengue.

Ray Chen is a violinist. He's only 24 years old, but already he has played some big big concerts. Nothing, though, compared to the concert he played this past winter in Stockholm. It was the annual Nobel Prize concert. "For me, this has been the most special concert in my life yet, " Chen said. "To play for these Nobel Prize Laureates, that is truly inspiring." We'll hear Chen's inspired performance of Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic on Thursday's Performance Today.

They seemed to be complete opposites: Mstislav Rostropovich was the fiery Soviet cellist. Benjamin Britten was the cool-tempered English composer. What they shared were uncompromising convictions about social issues and musical genius. On Wednesday's Performance Today Coleman Itzkoff, our Young Artist in Residence, brings to life music that Britten wrote for Rostropovich. It's music of fire and ice.