Performance Today®

It's time for our next 2025 Young Artist in Residence: violinist Samuel Frois. On today's show, Samuel joins Fred Child at our studio in Saint Paul to perform works by Brazilian composers Heitor Villa-Lobos and Andre Mehmari.

In 2016, pianist and composer Gabriela Montero wrote a concerto reflecting how people perceive Latin America. She says it's not an overtly political piece, but it does express the light and dark sides of the subject. Today, we'll hear Gabriela Montero play her “Latin Concerto” with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm. Plus, Bruce Adolphe has this week’s Piano Puzzler.

Pianist Lucas Debargue quit piano lessons in 2005 when he was 15 years old. As recently as 2015, he worked as a cashier at a supermarket. Then, he made an out-of-nowhere splash at the 2015 Tchaikovsky competition in Russia and has had a lively career ever since. Tune in today to hear Lukas Debargue play Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major at a concert in Stockholm, Sweden.

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote only one piece of keyboard music that was programmatic, meaning it tells a story. The 19-year-old Bach composed this piece for his older brother Johann Jakob when he left home to join the Swedish Army band as an oboist. On today's show, we'll hear Bach's musical description of the occasion: the Capriccio on the Departure of his most Dearly Beloved Brother.

We're pleased to present clarinetist Victor Ni, one of our next 2025 PT Young Artists in Residence. On today's program, Victor joins Fred Child for music and conversation in our Saint Paul studio.

Alexandre Kantorow enjoyed piano lessons as a boy, but he also spent plenty of time on the playground. It wasn't until high school that he started to take the piano seriously, and things happened quickly for him after that. In 2019, at age 22, he won both a Gold Medal and the Grand Prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia. Today, Alexandre Kantorow joins Germany's WDR Symphony Orchestra to perform Franz Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2.

In 2016, pianist and composer Gabriela Montero wrote a concerto reflecting how people perceive Latin America. She says it's not an overtly political piece, but it does express the light and dark sides of the subject. Today, we'll hear Gabriela Montero play her “Latin Concerto” with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm.

This fall, the renowned conductor Cristian Macelaru begins his tenure as the Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (CSO). One piece he recently shared with Cincinnati audiences is by one of his favorite composers: Wynton Marsalis. On today's episode, we'll hear Macelaru lead the CSO in a performance of Marsalis's Blues Symphony.

Tessa Lark is a uniquely American violinist. She has classical conservatory training and grew up playing the fiddle in her family’s bluegrass band in Kentucky. On today’s show, Tessa Lark shares two sides of herself with a sonata by Eugène Ysaye and a new piece named “The Ysaye Shuffle” by Tessa Lark.