Performance Today®

Joshua Bell says playing the Chaconne from J.S. Bach’s Partita No. 2 is a journey through tragedy, loss, redemption, and spirituality. It’s one of the most iconic works for solo violin played in concert by one of the great violinists of our time: Joshua Bell plays the Bach Chaconne on Today’s show.

For composer Michael Abels, the early 90s felt like a time of warming international relations. With the Cold War ending, he wrote a piece highlighting the connections among traditions worldwide. We'll hear 'Global Warming' by Michael Abels on this episode of Performance Today.

Every week, composer Bruce Adolphe joins us for a musical game: the Piano Puzzler. Bruce re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a great composer, and we get one of our listeners on the phone who tries to guess the hidden tune and the composer whose style Bruce is imitating. Play along with the PT Piano Puzzler!

Pianist Lara Downes is passionate about sharing the music of Black composers and strives to make previously overlooked music accessible for other musicians to play. On today's show, Lara Downes plays Florence Price's 'Piano Concerto in One Movement' with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

After returning to Paris from a working trip in Brazil, French composer Darius Milhaud wrote a piece filled with Brazilian rhythms and styles. We’ll hear it on today's show: The Ox on the Roof by Darius Milhaud, from a concert by the English Symphony Orchestra and conductor Kenneth Woods.

Every week, composer Bruce Adolphe joins us for a musical game: the Piano Puzzler. Bruce re-writes a familiar tune in the style of a great composer, and we get one of our listeners on the phone who tries to guess the hidden tune and the composer whose style Bruce is imitating. Play along with the PT Piano Puzzler!

Nathalie Stutzmann had a flourishing career as a contralto (singer) for three decades. When she felt she'd accomplished most of her dreams in that field, she pursued conducting full-time. She is now in her second season as the Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony. On today's episode of PT, Nathalie Stutzmann leads the Atlanta Symphony in a performance of J.S. Bach’s Orchestra Suite No. 3.

Yurui "Rain" Hou loves how chamber music is like conversation and how the composer gets to construct the conversation note by note. Hou is 19 years old and a student at Columbia University in New York City, but don't discount her music because of her age. On today's show, we'll hear a piece Rain Hou composed for the Emerging Composers Intensive in Carmel Valley, California.

On this edition of Performance Today, we'll hear the Philadelphia Orchestra in concert at their summer home in Saratoga Springs, New York. Conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin leads a performance of the Prelude to Act One of Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin.