Lara Downes

This July 4th marks the historic 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence—a monumental celebration of the United States as a sovereign democracy. We have special music lined up for the holiday weekend, including a world premiere composed specifically to commemorate this semiquincentennial milestone. Join us for a musical tribute to America's journey in this episode of Performance Today.

The hurdy-gurdy has strings like a violin, a keyboard, and a hand crank that produces a wheezing drone. Composer Missy Mazzoli was fascinated by this sound and wanted to make an entire orchestra sound like a big hurdy-gurdy. Tune in for the Sinfonia for Orbiting Spheres by Missy Mazzoli on today’s episode. Plus, we’ll take you to a concert in Turin, Italy, for a performance of Camille Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto.

As a teenager, composer Kian Ravaei loved listening to his iPod on shuffle, letting his favorite artists and styles blend without context—it was all just music. In 2025, Ravaei set out to replicate that sense of eclectic, high-contrast surprise with an inventive work for flute, violin, and electronics. On today's program, we'll hear Tara Helen O'Connor and Alexi Kenney play the world premiere performance of Kian Ravaei's iPod Variations.

To celebrate a hundred years of broadcasting, Polish Radio commissioned ten new works from the country's top composers. Join us today to hear Hanna Kulenty’s Violin Concerto No. 3. By manipulating the tempo of nature through looping, flowing melodies, Kulenty aims for a metaphysical "purification of the soul." Michał Klauza conducts the Polish Radio Orchestra with violinist Marcin Markowicz at a concert in Warsaw.

At the root of a legendary Havana musical family tree is the late Juan Jorge Junco, a clarinetist, soloist, and educator who helped shape Cuba’s sound. In honor of his grandfather’s enduring legacy, composer and pianist Aldo López-Gavilán created a new work for the wind repertoire. Today, we'll hear soloist Ricardo Morales and the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, led by Michael Butterman, at the world premiere of Aldo López-Gavilán’s Clarinet Concerto.

Indian-American composer Reena Esmail works between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music. In 2017, Esmail drew inspiration from the words of Rumi, a 13th-century Sufi poet: "Religions are many, but God is one. The lamps may be different, but the light is the same." On today's episode, we'll take you to a concert at the University of Georgia to hear the Imani Winds play Reena Esmail's 'The Light is the Same.'

Violinist Linus Roth once assumed that forgotten composers hadn't stood the test of time—until he discovered the music of Polish composer Mieczysław Weinberg. In 2011, Roth played a trio by Weinberg, sight unseen, and was so stunned by its emotional depth that he has since dedicated much of his career to bringing the composer back into the global spotlight. Today, we'll hear Roth perform a work defined by its hard-won beauty, Mieczysław Weinberg’s Violin Concerto, with Andris Poga leading the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra.

During the pandemic lockdown, the silence of the world's orchestras prompted composer Bryce Dessner to reflect on the fragility of culture and how music can become a fading memory. But, he also thought about how our memories of music can blend with our current experiences to create new, original sounds. On today’s show, conductor Semyon Bychkov leads the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert performance of 'Mari,' by Bryce Dessner.

Inspired by the play of light and shadow in Renaissance art, Giya Kancheli’s 'Chiaroscuro' translates the visual techniques of masters like Caravaggio into music. Kancheli uses high-contrast dynamics to craft a musical scene of depth and emotion, bringing the "light" and "dark" of the orchestra to life. On today's show, Andrey Boreyko conducts the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra with violinist Veriko Tchumburidze in a performance of 'Chiaroscuro' from Katowice, Poland.

In 2022, the Apollo Chamber Players commissioned a work by composer Wang Jie. Wang Jie, also trained as an organist, wrote the piece for the unusual combination of pipe organ and string quartet. On today's show, we'll hear the Apollo Chamber Players and organist Daryl Robinson play The Night When You See Again by Wang Jie.