Music for St. Nicholas Day

Gabriela Ortiz's vibrant orchestral work 'Kauyumari' is named after the spiritual guide of Mexico's Huichol people. The piece uses a recurring folk melody to evoke healing and ecstasy. Today, we’ll take you to a concert in Turin, Italy, to hear how Ortiz transforms traditional sounds into a joyful journey through what she calls the "invisible realm."

Cellist Raphaela Gromes was searching for new music to play when she received an email from a stranger—completely out of the blue—asking her to consider a piece his grandmother had written around 1930, a long-forgotten concerto. We'll have the story and the Cello Concerto by Maria Herz on today's show.

In 1911, Richard Strauss premiered his opera Der Rosenkavalier, a playful story of an 18th-century love triangle involving a gracious noblewoman, a young messenger, and a silver rose. Thirty years later, Strauss agreed to have two orchestral waltz sequences (suites) arranged. On today’s program, Simone Young conducts the Orchestra of the Suisse Romande in a performance of the Waltz Sequence No. 1 from Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier.

Beyond his work on soundtracks like Oppenheimer and The Mandalorian, conductor and bassoonist Anthony Parnther recently reached a new level of fame: appearing as a clue on Jeopardy! for his bassoon solos in the series Only Murders in the Building. In today's episode, Parnther shifts from the screen to the concert stage, leading pianist Audrey Andrist and the ensemble ROCO in an optimistic vision of the future: Duke Ellington’s soulful and forward-looking New World a-Comin'.

Johannes Brahms composed the powerful opening movement of his Piano Concerto No. 1 amid great personal turmoil. The concerto reflects Brahms’s complex emotions about the decline of his mentor, Robert Schumann. On today's show, pianist Yefim Bronfman joins conductor Donald Runnicles and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra for a performance of this moving piece.

Jean Sibelius had three things on his "must see" list during his only visit to the United States in 1914: tall buildings, Niagara Falls, and ...a whale. While he didn't spot a whale during his visit, he successfully premiered a tone poem inspired by the water nymphs (little whales?) of Greek mythology. Join us today as Jakub Hrusa conducts the Czech Philharmonic in a concert performance of The Oceanides by Jean Sibelius.

By the time Mieczyslaw Weinberg composed his second symphony, he had already escaped the Nazis twice. Soon after, he would face the horrors of Stalin's regime directly. However, in 1945, he was relatively safe in Moscow thanks to his friendship with Dmitri Shostakovich. On today's show, we'll hear Weinberg's Symphony No. 2 performed live at the 2025 Salzburg Festival in Austria.

In 1911, Richard Strauss premiered his opera Der Rosenkavalier, a playful story of an 18th-century love triangle involving a gracious noblewoman, a young messenger, and a silver rose. Thirty years later, Strauss agreed to have two orchestral waltz sequences (suites) arranged. On today’s program, Simone Young conducts the Orchestra of the Suisse Romande in a performance of the Waltz Sequence No. 1 from Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier.

Composer Toru Takemitsu says, "My music is something like a signal sent to the unknown. I imagine and believe that my signal meets another's and the resulting physical change creates a new harmony." We'll hear Takemitsu's Night Signal featuring the brass section of the Minnesota Orchestra on this episode of Performance Today.

A piercing high E note changed him forever. Bedrich Smetana's 'From My Life" is a musical autobiography, transformed from a string quartet into an orchestral epic by conductor George Szell. From the NOSPR hall in Katowice, Poland, Andrey Boreyko leads the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in a performance that turns personal tragedy into a symphonic triumph.