Performance Today®

Our week of highlights from the Aspen Music Festival and School continues with Music Director David Zinman talking about the mysterious art of conducting. (Zinman compares conducting to being a traffic cop and to riding a horse, and adds that you must be the "conscience of the orchestra," and in the end, the conductor must "BE the music.") Zinman talks the talk, and walks the walk - we'll hear him conduct the Aspen Festival Orchestra in Dvorak's rollicking Carnival Overture. And the Takacs Quartet plays Robert Schumann's A-Major Quartet.

There are so many venues to choose from in Aspen: the big white tent, the cozy underground concert hall, the historic opera house, the top of the mountain. We'll sample music from nearly all the Aspen venues as we begin a week-long celebration of the Aspen Music Festival and School. We'll hear from the 2009 opening concert by pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin, an all-star performance of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2, featuring violinist Gil Shaham and conductor Nicholas McGegan. And we'll take the gondola to the top of Aspen Mountain to hear from an outdoor concert under the Rocky Mountain sky featuring a student brass quintet.

While he was composing it, the working title for one of Aaron Copland's most beloved works was simply, "Ballet for Martha." Martha was Martha Graham, and just before it premiered, the ballet got its name, "Appalachian Spring." We'll hear music from "Appalachian Spring" on today's show, courtesy of the Marlboro Music School and Festival in the southern hills of Vermont.

It's not easy to be co-leaders, but pianists Richard Goode and Mitsuko Uchida find a way to make it work at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. This hour we'll get to experience the results the beautiful colaborations at Marlboro as Mitsuko Uchida gets together with violinist Soovin Kim and cellist David Soyer in Beethoven's Archduke Trio.

We'll go to London's Royal Albert Hall to hear a perfect piece for the BBC Proms. Edward Elgar's celebration of an ideal London--without care, without want, and without restrictions--the Cockaigne Overture. Charles Mackerras leads the BBC Philharmonic.

While he was composing it, the working title for one of Aaron Copland's most beloved works was simply, "Ballet for Martha." Martha was Martha Graham, and just before it premiered, the ballet got its name, "Appalachian Spring." We'll hear music from "Appalachian Spring" on today's show, courtesy of the Marlboro Music School and Festival in the southern hills of Vermont.

Conductor John Eliot Gardiner says there's one Bach motet that has a special "zing.""Sing to the Lord a New Song," or in German: "Singet dem Herrn," with a "zzz" sound in the word "Singet." Gardiner talks about the visceral fun for singers of that "zzz," which creates an almost percussive effect in the music. And we'll hear Gardiner conduct his Monteverdi Choir in concert two weeks ago at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Bach's motet "Singet dem Herrn," from the 2009 BBC Proms.

The gentlemanly American pianist Richard Goode has never cared for the hype and hyperbole of the music business. Which is one of several reasons he's perfectly suited to his role as co-artistic director of Marlboro Music, the unique artistic retreat in the hills of Vermont. Richard Goode joins us to talk about the value of time and silence at Marlboro, a place that cultivates musical depth over sheer virtuosity. And we'll hear Richard Goode team up with two Marlboro friends for a ravishing performance of the Brahms Horn Trio.

Leonard Bernstein was a brash young New Yorker when he wrote the music for "West Side Story," mixing classical with jazz and Latin American rhythms. We'll hear a group of brash young *21st century* New Yorkers playing the Symphonic Dances from West Side Story: The Philharmonic Orchestra of the Americas, founded by 28 year-old conductor Alondra de la Parra. Their concert was this spring at Lincoln Center in New York City.