Performance Today®

Every Friday, Performance Today features 21st century music. This week, the Symphony No. 4 by Arvo Part, dedicated to a man currently imprisoned in Siberia, a political opponent of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Part says "With my composition, I would like to reach out my hand...to the prisoner, and...to all those imprisoned without rights in Russia." Cem Monsur conducts the Helsinki Philharmonic, in concert in Helsinki.

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.

This week's Piano Puzzler is on today's show. Composer Bruce Adolphe takes a familiar tune and re-writes it in the style of a great classical composer. A PT listener calls in, tries to guess the hidden tune, and the composer whose style Bruce is imitating. This week, a listener from Lawton, Oklahoma plays his piano right back at Bruce, over the phone!

They were there the whole time -- two newly-discovered works by the boy Mozart. Theya€™re in his fathera€™s handwriting, so they were ignored for years. But now that someone actually *looked* at them, ita€™s clear theya€™re not in the pedantic style of Mozarta€™s father, theya€™re the work of a much more adventurous mind. Wea€™ll hear the unveiling of these two newly discovered pieces by Mozart, from a concert (that was also a news conference) in Salzburg on Sunday.

They were there the whole time - two newly-discovered works by the boy Mozart. They're in his father's handwriting, so they were ignored for years. But now that someone actually looked at them, it's clear they're not in the pedantic style of Mozart's father, they're the work of a much more adventurous mind. We'll hear the unveiling of these two newly discovered pieces by Mozart, from a concert (that was also a news conference) in Salzburg on Sunday.

Host Fred Child wraps up his long weekend at the Interlochen Music Camp in Michigan by sharing a 2009 highlight from the astonishingly talented high schoolers in the World Youth Symphony Orchestra, playing a Verdi overture.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And in 1798, Joseph Haydn told that story in music. Haydn's greatest work may have been his oratorio, "The Creation." Music that is at once reverent, and ravishingly beautiful. We'll hear Part One from Haydn's Creation in a glorious concert a week and a half ago at the 2009 BBC Proms, in London. Paul McCreesh conducting his Gabrieli Consort, and a massed ensemble of nearly 200 musicians and singers.

Host Fred Child is at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, in Michigan, for the final weekend of the 2009 Interlochen Arts Camp. We'll highlight the hard work and play of the students at Interlochen...more than 1500 of the best young musicians in the world, ages 8-18. And we'll hear students raving about traditions like "Gutter Sundae" (clean household gutters from the hardware store, filled with ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce), and talking about what's so inspiring about Interlochen...aside from the ice cream.

Obituaries this week have called him a classical music critic, or a classical music writer. At Performance Today, we remember Michael Steinberg as classical music sage. Steinberg's reviews, books, concert notes and lectures had a way of getting at the essence of music, and at the essence of the *experience* of music. Michael Steinberg was 80 when he died this past weekend.