Performance Today®

Efficiency experts would have loved Mozart. Some composers spend years, even decades, writing a single symphony. But in 1783, Mozart proved that it's possible to get the job done in just four days. We'll hear Mozart's weekend masterpiece, his Linz Symphony, from a concert at the Music Academy of the West in California. The always efficient Nicholas McGegan conducts.

Composer Nico Muhly had a mad, brilliant idea for a new piece this year. He looked at the world around him, at the way people and animals, even insects, moved around. And the more he thought about it, about the rhythm and grace and power involved in getting from point A to point B, the more he thought he could make music out of it. And he was right. Today, we'll hear the world premiere of Gait, by Nico Muhly, from a concert last month at the Proms in London.

Itzhak Perlman is one of the greatest violinists today, known all over the world. And within the Jewish community, Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot shares a similar level of respect and fame. So it's fitting that the two of them decided to make a CD together. PT host Fred Child spoke with Perlman and Helfgot recently about the project. Today, in honor of the beginning of Rosh Hashanah on Sunday, we'll hear highlights from that interview and their new CD, Eternal Echoes.

Itzhak Perlman is one of the greatest violinists today, known all over the world. And within the Jewish community, Cantor Yitzchak Meir Helfgot shares a similar level of respect and fame. So it's fitting that the two of them decided to make a CD together. PT host Fred Child spoke with Perlman and Helfgot recently about the project. Today, in honor of the beginning of Rosh Hashanah on Sunday, we'll hear highlights from that interview and their new CD, Eternal Echoes.

Violinist Robert McDuffie talks with Fred Child about the future of music education.

In an ideal world, music would be a pure meritocracy. The most talented musicians would be the most successful. But violinist Robert McDuffie says it's not just about talent anymore. McDuffie joins Fred Child in the studio to talk about orchestras in crisis, the future job market for young musicians and how he believes we should train them. Plus, we'll hear McDuffie perform Barber's Violin Concerto with the Atlanta Symphony.

It's September, and the school year is starting up, so here's a classical quiz.

We often associate Arnold Schoenberg with crunchy, angular, atonal music. Music that's more for the head than the heart. But Schoenberg had a heart, after all. A heart with a surprising soft spot for the music of Johann Strauss, Jr., the Waltz King. In today's show, a loving arrangement of Strauss' Emperor Waltz, by Arnold Schoenberg. Plus, transformations of music by Arcangelo Corelli and the British rock band Radiohead.

The Aspen Music Festival and School in Aspen, Colorado, is many things. A terrific training ground for young musicians. A popular venue for classical all-star concerts. A place of inordinate natural beauty, nestled in the Colorado Rockies. But above all, Aspen is a place to follow one's dreams. As a young violinist, Mei-Ann Chen dreamed of being a conductor. In today's show, she leads a group with big dreams of their own, the all-student Aspen Philharmonic, in the Symphony No. 2 by Brahms.