Poster Fred Child
Fred Child
MPR

Performance Today®

with host Fred Child

All Episodes

Bruce Adolphe and the Piano Puzzler

Bruce Adolphe and the Piano Puzzler

So, what is a Piano Puzzler, you might ask? Well, it's a familiar tune that Bruce Adolphe has re-written in the style of a classical composer. See if you can name the hidden tune and the composer whose style Bruce is imitating. Join us for this week’s Piano Puzzler on this episode of Performance Today.

Love and music

Love and music

There's romantic love, of course, but love means so much more than that...familial love, the loyalty of friends, the care for our communities, and even the love we can cultivate for ourselves. Join us today for music that can evoke all these feelings this Valentine’s Day and any other day of the year.

PT Young Artist: Salvador Flores

PT Young Artist: Salvador Flores

We're proud to introduce you to our first 2022-2023 PT Young Artist in Residence: Saxophonist Salvador Flores. Salvador recently joined Fred Child at the Maud Moon Weyerhaeuser Recording Studio in St. Paul, Minnesota. Hear the conversation and music right here!

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Meet Salvador Flores

Meet Salvador Flores

We'll introduce you to saxophonist Salvador Flores, one of our 2023 PT Young Artists in Residence, on today's show. Salvador joins Fred Child for music and conversation at our studio in St. Paul.

PT Weekend: Façades

PT Weekend: Façades

In the Roaring 20s, composer William Walton and poet Edith Sitwell created a playful work called 'Façade: An Entertainment.' And according to conductor JoAnn Falletta, the title says it all. She says, "It's not something to worry about. It's something to just be charmed by." Hear highlights from Façade on this weekend's episode of Performance Today.

Rachmaninoff's elegy for Tchaikovsky

Rachmaninoff's elegy for Tchaikovsky

Sergei Rachmaninoff was a young unknown when he met his hero, composer Peter Tchaikovsky, who died only a month later. The very night Rachmaninoff got the news, he began writing a piece in honor of Tchaikovsky. On today's show, we'll hear members of the Seattle Chamber Music Society play the Trio élégiaque No. 2 by Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Samuel Nebyu

Samuel Nebyu

Ethiopian-Hungarian violinist Samuel Nebyu played at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland…and his entire concert was music by composers of African descent. On today’s show, we’ll revisit that special concert to hear Nebyu play "Deep River” by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

Façades

Façades

In the Roaring 20s, composer William Walton and poet Edith Sitwell created a playful work called 'Façade: An Entertainment.' And according to conductor JoAnn Falletta, the title says it all. She says, "It's not something to worry about. It's something to just be charmed by." Hear highlights from Façade on today's episode of Performance Today.

James Ehnes at the Grand Teton Music Festival

James Ehnes at the Grand Teton Music Festival

Violinist James Ehnes says that the Grand Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is one of his favorite places on earth. In an essay for Strings magazine, Ehnes wrote that the GTMF is a place "...where the physical beauty is beyond description, and where the quality of music-making defies rational explanation." On today's show, we'll hear James Ehnes and the Grand Teton Festival Orchestra play the Violin Concerto by Samuel Barber.