Performance Today®

This month, soprano Deborah Voigt has been on stage at the Metropolitan Opera in New York singing the role of Brunhilde in Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. We asked Voigt what Wagner's music means to her as a singer. Her first answer was "LONG," but her second answer showed how she really feels. "You will constantly discover things in Wagner's music that you didn't hear" the first or even fifth time, she said. "It's just so rich." Deborah Voigt talks about the composer who is about to celebrate his 200th anniversary on Tuesday's Performance Today.

Throughout this school year Performance Today been featuring some of the most talented young musicians from conservatories and schools of music around the country. On Monday, we welcome our new Young Artist in Residence: violinist Timothy Kantor. He'll perform in the studio every day this week, starting on Monday with a sonata by Felix Mendelssohn.

Free MP3 downloads, video and interviews with the talented violinist Timothy Kantor.

In 1908 Maurice Ravel wrote an enchanting piece for solo piano called Ondine or water fairy. Ravel often did orchestral versions of his piano pieces, but not this one. He left it as a piano solo. However, that hasn't stopped others from trying. On this weekend's Performance Today we'll hear a fascinating musical experiment. The Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra had Louis Lortie play Ravel's solo piano version. Then, without a break, they played a 1990 orchestration of the piece. We'll hear them back to back, just as they were done on stage in Brazil.

Oboe, clarinet, saxophone, bass clarinet and bassoon. What a weird combination. Can that possibly work for anything? On Friday's Performance Today we'll meet a band who make it work for just about everything. They call themselves Calefax and we'll hear them perform a concert in the Netherlands.

Richard Strauss knew horns. His father Franz was among the great horn players of the day and he often listened to his father rehearse and perform. When Richard Strauss was 18 years old, he wrote a concerto for his father--and exceptionally difficult concerto, no less. On Thursday's Performance Today we'll hear Philip Myers take the solo role with the New York Philharmonic in a performance of a horn concerto for dad.

"Good composers borrow, great composers steal." That quote is often attributed to Igor Stravinsky, one of the most original composers of the 20th century. Even when Stravinsky pilfered musical ideas, though, he made them very much his own. When Stravinsky wrote ballet music in 1919, he lifted tunes from about two centuries earlier, but tweaked them enough to put his own stamp on them. On Wednesday's Performance Today, we'll hear the result: The Pulcinella Suite by Igor Stravinsky from a concert in Cologne, Germany.

In 1908 Maurice Ravel wrote an enchanting piece for solo piano called Ondine or water fairy. Ravel often did orchestral versions of his piano pieces, but not this one. He left it as a piano solo. However, that hasn't stopped others from trying. On Tuesday's Performance Today we'll hear a fascinating musical experiment. The Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra had Louis Lortie play Ravel's solo piano version. Then, without a break, they played a 1990 orchestration of the piece. We'll hear them back to back, just as they were done on stage in Brazil.

Napoleon's defeat inspired two noisy pieces of music. There was Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. But there was also a noisy, impetuous, militant march by Beethoven called Wellington's Victory, one of those rare occasions when the loser's name is more known than the winner. Beethoven's march is not played as often as the Tchaikovsky, but it's a fascinating piece with a curious history. On Monday's Performance Today, we'll hear Wellington's Victory in performance from a concert in Dublin, Ireland.