Performance Today®

A single lark swoops and flits, hovers and circles, all the while rising higher and higher over the English countryside. It's Ralph Vaughan Williams' much-loved work for violin and orchestra, "The Lark Ascending." We'll hear Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti in a performance at a London Proms concert a couple of weeks ago. Then we'll be the ones doing the ascending, riding the gondola to the top of the mountain at the Aspen Music Festival. We'll hear Dvorak's Carnival Overture, from a concert last summer at Aspen.

They say it's not an empty nest until the kids get their junk out of the basement. Johannes Brahms was still living at home, still storing his stuff in the basement, at the age of 27. And he wasn't too happy about it. He said he had "as much privacy as a servant with his bed in the kitchen." When Brahms finally moved out, he was so happy he dedicated his next work to his new landlady. The Takacs Quartet and pianist Anton Nel perform that piece, a piano quartet, from a concert last month in Aspen. Plus, another 27-year-old makes his PT debut: American cellist Joshua Roman.

Of all the things that give musicians anxiety dreams, the master class has to be up there at the top. Out on stage alone, not only performing for an audience, but having a master teacher there to stop you and critique everything you're doing. And yet, it's a marvelous learning experience, both for the student and for the audience. Cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han give a master class on (what else?) cello and piano sonatas, at the Aspen Festival. Following that, we'll hear them perform a Beethoven cello sonata, from a concert at Aspen last month. Plus, violinist Julia Fischer gives a spectacular performance of a Bach solo violin partita in Aspen.

England and Scotland haven't always been the best of friends. They're both part of Great Britain now, but there's still a bit of healthy rivalry between them. So when Scottish conductor Donald Runnicles brought his orchestra from Glasgow, the BBC Scottish Symphony, down to London to play at the Proms, he did quite a remarkable thing. He chose an all-English program. Effectively out-Englishing the English, one critic called it "the most purely English concert of this Prom season." We'll hear part of that concert, the final two movements of Edward Elgar's First Symphony.

On today's show, music inspired by the grand as well as the grotesque. We'll hear the finale from one of the grandest symphonies ever written, Mahler's Fifth. And our weekly 21st century work, Michael Gandolfi's "As Above," was inspired, at least in part, by water bugs. Plus, we'll hear about one of the most important folks at the Aspen Music Festival: veteran bus driver and classical music fan Dick Miller, who drives the musicians from venue to venue during the festival. PT continues its residency at Aspen all next week.

Today's show offers evidence of the many ways that music changes people's lives. We'll hear about the Kimbanguist Symphony Orchestra of Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The musicians in the orchestra are like other Congolese. They struggle with every aspect of daily life: food, shelter, medical care, raising families. And yet, they're immensely dedicated. And music is changing the lives of the dedicated young musicians of the Aspen Festival. We'll hear a couple of knockout performances from Aspen, and meet young Aspen conductor Case Scaglione.

England and Scotland haven't always been the best of friends. They're both part of Great Britain now, but there's still a bit of healthy rivalry between them. So when Scottish conductor Donald Runnicles brought his orchestra from Glasgow, the BBC Scottish Symphony, down to London to play at the Proms, he did quite a remarkable thing. He chose an all-English program. Effectively out-Englishing the English, one critic called it "the most purely English concert of this Prom season." We'll hear part of that concert, the final two movements of Edward Elgar's First Symphony.

All this week and next, host Fred Child will be at the Aspen Music Festival in Aspen Colorado. Performance Today will be coming to you from the studios of Aspen Public Radio. We'll have great performances from Aspen, and hear from the artists themselves what it's like to participate in the nation's largest classical music festival. Conductor Nicholas McGegan calls it "paradise." McGegan leads an A-list cast in a performance of a Vivaldi double violin concerto.

Violinist Joshua Bell remembers being a 15-year-old student at the Aspen Music Festival and School, and how it changed his life. He'll tell the story, and we'll hear Gil Shaham, Cho-Liang Lin, Ingrid Fliter, and others share their Aspen memories. And from this summer's Aspen Music Festival, Joshua Bell joins the Aspen Chamber Symphony to play the Violin Concerto by Felix Mendelssohn. Also from the 2010 Aspen Festival: David Finckel and Wu Han play Beethoven's Cello Sonata No. 2, Ingrid Fliter plays a pair of Chopin Waltzes, and flutist Marina Piccinini and the Brasil Guitar Duo play "Doce de Coco" by Brazilian composer Jacob do Bandolim.