Performance Today®

Today, we'll hear the king of instruments in the hands of a master. Organist Paul Jacobs joins the Pacific Symphony for a performance of Camille Saint-Saens' Organ Symphony from the Orange County Performing Arts Center in California. The occasion marked the debut of that new instrument -- all 4,322 pipes of it.

Gershwin had it. Pianist Jon Kimura Parker has it. It's that masterful sense of timing, of where and when to place every note for just the right amount of swing. It's rhythm, and you'll have it too after listening to today's show. Pianist Jon Kimura Parker joins the Colorado Symphony for George Gershwin's Variations on "I Got Rhythm."

If there's an earthquake down under, will we feel it here in the U.S.? Definitely. Never one for small ambitions, Antonin Dvorak said he wanted his music to "shake the world." Today on PT we'll hear the West Australia Symphony Orchestra performing Dvorak's Seventh Symphony from a concert in Perth, Australia.

Gershwin had it. Pianist Jon Kimura Parker has it. It's that masterful sense of timing, of where and when to place every note for just the right amount of swing. It's rhythm, and you'll have it too after listening to today's show. Pianist Jon Kimura Parker joins the Colorado Symphony for George Gershwin's Variations on "I Got Rhythm."

Impressionism was all the rage in France a hundred years ago, but it didn't really catch on in America. Today on the show we'll be exploring impressionism - from both sides of the Atlantic. You may not be familiar with American impressionist composer Charles Griffes. We'll hear two of his works plus music by those more famous impressionists, Manuel de Falla and Maurice Ravel.

Life dealt the Orion String Quartet a bunch of lemons earlier this year when one of their members was stranded in Chicago and unable to get to their concert in San Antonio. So the remaining three members of the quartet had to scramble to put together a performance without him. We'll hear that trio performance today.

Two giant turbines loom large on the stage. Black iron hooks and chains dangle from the ceiling. No, it's not a medieval torture chamber. It's a concert venue, although an admittedly unusual one. It's the Heimbach Power plant in Germany, site of the Spannungen Chamber Music Festival. We'll hear a Dvorak piano quintet from Heimbach today on PT.

What's your favorite Mozart work? Mozart himself addressed that question, and he picked his Quintet in E-flat for Piano and Winds as his best. We'll hear it performed today by pianist Jon Kimura Parker and members of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, from a concert given in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

Best to have your fire extinguisher at the ready. Today we'll feature an hour of both fiery and fire-inspired music in the second half of our show. From Stravinsky's Firebird ballet arranged for five pianos to the fiery "Devil's Trill" performed by violinist Joshua Bell, it'll be a scorcher on Performance Today.