A Hero in His Own Mind

‘Performance Today’ has selected performer and composer Jessie Montgomery as the 2025 Classical Woman of the Year. This annual award recognizes women who have made significant contributions to the classical music art form and have inspired our listeners. Find out more!

Wynton Marsalis believes the blues is more than a style—it is a way to process life's hardships and reach what he calls "a timeless higher ground." In 2015, Marsalis premiered a work that captures this journey, moving from the depths of sorrow to the vibrant, high-energy rhythms of Afro-Latin dance. In this episode, Cristian Macelaru leads the Minnesota Orchestra in a performance of Marsalis's Blues Symphony.

When Claude Debussy composed music for the ballet "Jeux," he envisioned a game of tennis between two women and a young man. In tennis, "love" means nothing; in Debussy's music, love is everything. In this episode, we'll hear romance and seduction on the courts from a recent concert in Budapest.

When you land on the homepage of pianist and composer Stephen Prutsman, you're greeted with a quote from Hans Christian Andersen: "Where words fail, music speaks." Tune in today to hear Prutsman and his music speak through his piece 'Dog' at a concert in Charleston, South Carolina.

Today, we'll hear the powerful overture to the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera, Omar, by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels. The opera tells the true story of Omar Ibn Said, a West African Islamic scholar who was enslaved in 1807. Giddens and Abels built the overture on the melody of Koromanti, one of the earliest documented songs composed by an enslaved person in the Americas. A big thanks goes out to Interlochen Presents and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for sharing this performance with us!

Join us today to hear Brian Raphael Nabors' orchestral work Upon Daybreak. Inspired by Maya Angelou's poem "A Brave and Startling Truth," Nabors explores the sound of a world free of hatred. ROCO performs this "ode of triumph" in concert on the campus of Rice University in Houston.

From the neon flicker of a glowstick to the summer sparkle of a lightning bug, composer Jessie Montgomery draws inspiration from the science of light. Tune in today to hear the Sphinx Virtuosi perform Montgomery's 'Chemiluminescence' at a recent concert presented by Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

In 2020, Joel Thompson composed a piano work inspired by the words of James Baldwin. The piece reimagines the national anthem to reflect on the gap between American ideals and reality. On today's show, pianist Michelle Cann performs Joel Thompson's My Dungeon Shook at a concert presented by Spivey Hall in Morrow, Georgia.

Composer Julio Medaglia was born in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1938. He studied conducting in Germany for ten years before returning to Brazil to conduct and compose. For 30 years, he hosted a daily radio show in São Paulo that sounded similar to PT, combining concert highlights and contemporary music. On today's show, we'll hear the Imani Winds play Julio Medaglia's 'Belle Epoque en Sud-America,’ including a really fun movement named "Crazy Baby Clarinette!"

Inspired by Isabel Wilkerson's moving book on the Great Migration, composer Carlos Simon captures the search for hope and the struggle to find a home. On today's show, we'll hear the Ivalas Quartet perform Simon's Warmth from Other Suns at a concert in Skaneateles, New York.