Performance Today®

The music world was saddened to learn of the death late last week of Romanian pianist Mihaela Ursuleasa. She was only 33, and died of an apparent brain hemorrhage. Mihaela Ursuleasa stopped by the PT studios in 2008 for music and conversation with host Fred Child. PT staffers remember her as being smart and talented and engaging. In today's show, we'll rebroadcast portions of that 2008 interview, and her performance of music by Rachmaninoff and Chopin.

In 1999, conductor Daniel Barenboim and his good friend, author Edward Said, decided to found an orchestra made of up both Israeli and Arab musicians. Lots of people said they were crazy. Others said it might lead to peace in the Middle East. Barenboim is too much of an optimist and just enough of a pessimist to believe either argument. Still, he says what it can do is open up the dialogue between the two sides of the conflict. All this week, we'll hear Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in symphonies by Beethoven, from the Proms in London.

La Follia is an ancient tune, at least 500 years old. Over the centuries, hundreds of composers have tried their hand at arranging it. Roberto Sierra just might be the most recent in that long line of tunesmiths. His version is only about a decade old. We'll hear guitarist Celil Refik Kaya in Sierra's Folias, which earned him the gold medal at the 2012 JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Competition.

The most compelling stories to come out of the London Olympics are the ones of triumph over adversity. Hard-fought victories, athletes overcoming setback or injury to win medals. Sergei Rachmaninoff battled overwhelming criticism and self-doubt when he was writing his second piano concerto. He even did what many athletes do to improve their mental game. He consulted a hypnotherapist. Today, we'll visit the other big event going on in London right now, the Proms. Kirill Gerstein plays Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2.

The music-making at Marlboro is so terrific that at times it almost seems other-worldly. In today's show, the story of one Marlboro resident who truly is from another dimension. That is, if you believe in ghosts. We'll share the story of Emily Mather, the ghost of Marlboro, and hear a performance of Beethoven's Ghost Trio.

Every summer, something strange and magical happens at Marlboro Music in Vermont. Festival co-director Mitsuko Uchida says, "Time passes very slowly in Marlboro, and at the same time very fast. You blink, and seven weeks are gone. But it seems as if you had eternity in your hands." In today's show, highlights from one of Mitsuko Uchida's Marlboro performances, teaming up with two young string players for a Schubert Adagio.

Most classical music concerts take place inside the concert hall, essentially a glorified box. Many of those boxes are rightly revered and cherished for their history, architecture, and acoustics. But today, we'll go outside the box. Today's show features performances from unusual locations, including a barge, a night club, and a decommissioned power plant.

Every summer, an amazing musical gathering takes place in Vermont. Christopher Serkin, board member of Marlboro Music, sums it up this way. He says, "It's like summer camp, but for geniuses." Serkin's grandfather, pianist Rudolf Serkin, founded Marlboro in 1951. Every summer since then, young professionals and seasoned music veterans have gathered for seven weeks of glorious music-making. We'll have highlights from Marlboro all week, including a Shostakovich Piano Trio in today's show.

Every summer in London, the world's biggest summer music festival, the BBC Proms, gets underway. It features eight weeks of daily concerts with some of the biggest names in classical music. This year for the first time, PT is streaming every single Proms concert live on the PT home page, www.performancetoday.org. And we'll be featuring highlights from many of the performances in the show. Coming up today, highlights from opening night at the Proms, two weeks ago in London.