Music for St. Nicholas Day

Pianist Aristo Sham believes a music competition's true measure is how it treats its musicians. He praises the Cliburn Competition for making contestants feel less like rivals and more like respected artists at a festival. Today, we'll hear Aristo Sham perform music by Sergei Rachmaninoff and Gabriella Montero, recorded live at the 2025 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Growing up in Soviet-ruled Estonia, conductor Paavo Järvi found that highly drilled Tchaikovsky performances left him cold. But hearing a live Leonard Bernstein performance in 1988 completely transformed his view. The performance revealed the music's living, breathing emotion and inspired Järvi to make Tchaikovsky central to his career. In today's program, Paavo Järvi leads the North German Radio Elbphilharmonie in the final movements of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 3.

Francis Malka balances a remarkable career across multiple disciplines: he composes music, writes award-winning science fiction, and develops software. On today's show, we'll hear a quartet of rising Canadian stars perform the world premiere of Francis Malka's String Quartet No. 1, recorded at the Montreal Chamber Music Festival.

The all-star London brass ensemble Septura brings George Gershwin's classic piano preludes to life in a vibrant new way. Without a single piano in sight, the seven-piece group uses distinctive articulation and brass textures to highlight Gershwin's harmonies. We'll hear Septura perform an inventive arrangement of Gershwin's preludes live at a concert presented by the renowned Lillian and Robert Utsey Chamber Music Series.

While many musicians follow a strict, lifelong path to the conservatory, Joaquin Valdepeñas took a winding route. He didn't pick up a clarinet until seventh grade and treated it as a hobby for the school year. He didn't take his first formal lessons until college. He eventually earned a Master’s from Yale and has spent the last 22 years as principal clarinetist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. In today's program, Valdepeñas shares that wealth of experience as a conductor and educator. We'll hear him lead the Aspen Wind Orchestra in Charles Gounod's Petite Symphonie, recorded live at the Aspen Music Festival and School in Colorado.

Raised by a jazz-musician father, horn player David Byrd-Marrow originally set his sights on the trumpet and Juilliard before discovering a passion for contemporary music in New York. He now embraces every musical style, from jazz and Broadway to contemporary chamber music. In today's program, we'll hear Byrd-Marrow perform Carl Czerny's ‘Andante e Polacca’ with pianist Michael Stephen Brown, from a concert presented by the Lillian & Robert Utsey Chamber Music Series in Clemson, South Carolina.

Meet one of our 2026 PT Young Artists in Residence: Soprano Claudia Diaz. In today's episode, Claudia joins Valerie Kahler for music and conversation in our Saint Paul studio.

Francis Malka balances a remarkable career across multiple disciplines: he composes music, writes award-winning science fiction, and develops software. On today's show, we'll hear a quartet of rising Canadian stars perform the world premiere of Francis Malka's String Quartet No. 1, recorded at the Montreal Chamber Music Festival.

Inspired by Charles Baudelaire's poetry, French composer Henri Dutilleux drew on literary lines to set the mood for a concerto he was working on. Tune in today to hear Dutilleux's Tout un monde lointain (A Whole Distant World), featuring cellist Jan Vogler and conductor Kent Nagano leading the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra.

From the neon flicker of a glowstick to the summer sparkle of a lightning bug, composer Jessie Montgomery finds musical inspiration in 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.