Performance Today®

We're celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month here on PT, inviting some of our favorite Latin musicians to pick out some music to share. We recently spoke with violist Paul Laraia of the Catalyst Quartet - we'll hear his musical suggestions for Hispanic Heritage Month on today's show. Plus, Bruce Adolphe has this week's Piano Puzzler!

Argentine bandoneon player JP Jofre remembers hearing music by Astor Piazzolla for the first time. He says, "It was classical, and it was tango, and it had the power of heavy metal. I knew this was what I wanted to do." Join us today to hear JP Jofre and friends play music by Astor Piazzolla from a concert at the Geneva Music Festival in Geneva, NY.

Concert halls across the country and around the world are once again filled with music and audiences! On today's show, we'll hear a recent performance of Leonard Bernstein's Divertimento from a concert in Belgium.

We're celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month here on PT, inviting some of our favorite Latin musicians to pick out some music to share. We recently spoke with violist Paul Laraia of the Catalyst Quartet - we'll hear his musical suggestions for Hispanic Heritage Month on today's show.

During the height of the pandemic, American composer Missy Mazzoli read about the history of medieval healing rituals, which was the inspiration behind a new piece of music. Join us today to hear Procession, a violin concerto by Missy Mazzoli.

The Manhattan skyline, the majesty of the Teton Mountains, and indigenous communities living in the American West. Those are some of the elements that inspired a musical reflection on our nation: American Scene by William Grant Still.

In 2016, pianist and composer Gabriela Montero wrote what she describes as "a portrait of Latin American in all its splendor." On today's show, we'll hear Montero's Piano Concerto No. 1 ("Latin Concerto") with Carlos Miguel Prieto conducting the Orchestra of the Americas.

Composer Gabriela Lena Frank says when she discovered Alberto Ginastera's music, a whole new range of expressive possibilities opened up for her. Gaby Lena Frank helps us celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with music from Argentina: Alberto Ginastera’s String Quartet No. 2.

Grazyna Bacewicz was a composer in Poland in the mid-20th century. Even during the Second World War, she was part of an underground concert scene. We'll hear a piece she wrote in Warsaw in the middle of 1943 on this episode of Performance Today.