Performance Today®

Leaving school can be a bit like leaving the womb. Getting out takes a lot of hard work. Nothing is safe or certain any more, but the possibilities are endless. This week, we're featuring some of the top university and conservatory students in their student recitals. Also, we'll hear from two training orchestras for young musicians: the European Union Baroque Orchestra and the National Orchestral Institute Orchestra (pictured).

All this week on Performance Today, we're featuring terrific performances by some of the top university and conservatory music students in the country. They're the next generation of classical musicians, and they've been studying and practicing for years for the big event, their senior recitals. On today's show, we'll feature students from the Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Texas at Austin.

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. The first hour of today's show features performances from unusual locations, including a barge, a night club, and a former power plant (the Heimbach hydroelectric plant, pictured).

Sunday is Father's Day, and we're celebrating the day. Today's show features stories of fatherhood and the classical music world. We'll hear the new sitar concerto by Ravi Shankar (pictured), written for his daughter Anoushka. Pianist Lang Lang shares the stage with his dad, who plays the Chinese erhu. And we'll hear from father and son Jeffrey and Gabriel Kahane, on how music influenced their relationship.

Sunday is Father's Day, and we're celebrating a few days early. Today's show features stories of fatherhood and the classical music world. We'll hear the new sitar concerto by Ravi Shankar (pictured), written for his daughter Anoushka. Pianist Lang Lang shares the stage with his dad, who plays the Chinese erhu. And we'll hear from father and son Jeffrey and Gabriel Kahane, on how music influenced their relationship.

After we hear William Walton's musical evocation of this etching by Thomas Rowlandson, Fred Child sits down in our Maud Moon Weyerhaeuser Music Studio for a chat with pianist Rudolf Buchbinder. He's a lover of the live experience: Almost all of his recordings are from concerts. But he'll break with form by playing Schubert and Johann Strauss in the studio. Then we'll go to Amsterdam to hear him perform music from Brahms' Second Piano Concerto.

When violinist Pinchas Zukerman wanted to start a group of traveling chamber musicians, he called it, not so surprisingly, the Zukerman ChamberPlayers. Trading on the name brand recognition, the group is also making a name for itself artistically. On today's show, we'll hear them perform a Mozart string quintet in New York City.

Poet Laure-Anne Bosselaar hates Mozart, but loves Beethoven. She grew up without classical music in her life, and discovered him at age 17, hearing his fifth symphony for the first time. On today's show, Bosselaar reads her poem, "The Pleasures of Hating." Plus, we'll hear that famous fifth symphony of Beethoven's, performed by the Dallas Symphony and conductor Jaap van Zweden.

William Shakespeare's play about two young, star-crossed lovers has provided the inspiration for some great music. On today's show, we'll hear the lush romanticism of Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet" overture, and Prokofiev's ballet suites, with their combination of power and intimacy. Vladimir Spivakov leads the National Philharmonic of Russia, in concert at the Worcester Music Festival.