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.
"I thought I was going to be a pop star," Eric Whitacre told Performance Today. "I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I'd be a classical composer." In a sense, Whitacre is now both. He is a choral composer. When it comes to the world of choral music, though, Whitacre is welcomed like a rock star. On Friday's Performance Today we'll hear Eric Whitacre's latest, a 2013 composition for the Tallis Scholars.
The 2013 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition is heading down the homestretch. We began two weeks ago with 30 pianists. Now we are down to six finalists. The judges will pick a winner Sunday night. For the first time since 1997, there is an American among the finalists: Sean Chen. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear a highlight from the first round of the competition performed by the 24 year-old pianist from Los Angeles.
Music was a part of movies since before they even had sound. During the silent film era, pianists or organists would play along in the theater. From the 1930s on, Hollywood has known the value of music in supporting, and even sometimes creating a sense of emotion and drama. On Wednesday's Performance Today we'll sample powerful music from the movies. A symphony by Mozart that helped to create just the right sense of dread in the 1984 film 'Amadeus.' Music by Grieg, artfully adapted for the 2010 film 'The Social Network.' And Joshua Bell joins Fred Child to talk about a 21st-century violin concerto based on music John Corigliano wrote for the 1993 film 'The Red Violin.'
How many jokes still work after more than 200 years? On Tuesday's Performance Today, Sir Simon Rattle conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, in a concert performance of the Symphony No. 90, by Joseph Haydn. Rattle says he loves the elegance and sophistication of Joseph Haydn's writing, but also a silly joke at the end of this piece. If you simply play it the way Haydn wrote it, Rattle says the 200 year-old joke never gets old.
On Monday's Performance Today we'll sample performances from the annual Ojai Festival which begins this Thursday in California. Last year, pianist Leif Ove Andsnes was the music director. We'll hear him perform music by Mozart in what he describes "this place of beauty and slow pulse." And we'll talk with the music director for the 2013 festival: dancer, director and choreographer Mark Morris.
On an early morning walk, Antonin Dvorak heard the song of a red bird, with black wings. Dvorak was transfixed. He quickly scribbled down the melody of that bird song, then hurried home to include the song of the Scarlet Tanager in his new string quartet. We'll hear the Miro Quartet play Dvorak's American Quartet, with that American bird song in the third movement, on this weekend's Performance Today, from APM.
Camille Saint-Saens wrote The Carnival of the Animals for a private party and hoped that would be the last time it was ever heard. He thought it was too goofy to be published or taken seriously. It's now his most popular piece all around the world. We'll hear the hopping kangaroos, the braying donkeys and even the rattling bones of this piece from a concert in Buffalo, New York on Friday's Performance Today
The great voice-over actor, Mel Blanc, was born on this day, May 30th, in 1908. He created voices for Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepe Le Pew, and so many memorable characters in Warner Brothers cartoons. We'll celebrate Mel Blanc's birthday with a few excerpts from classic cartoons, and highlight the classical music they so often featured.
It was an unusually hot day in Paris: May 29th, 1913. But the heat of the late-day sun was nothing compared to the inferno generated by that day's performance at the city's big ballet company. It was an event that would change music forever: the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's ballet, the Rite of Spring. To mark the 100th anniversary of that famous and infamous premiere, music writer Alex Ross tells the story of that musical riot. And we'll go to Dallas to hear Jaap van Zweden lead a concert performance by the Dallas Symphony, on Wednesday's Performance Today.
