American Public Media’s Performance Today® is America’s most popular classical music radio program and a winner of the 2014 Gabriel Award for artistic achievement. The show is broadcast on hundreds of public radio stations across the country, including at 1 p.m. central weekdays on Minnesota Public Radio. More information about our stations can be found at APM Distribution.
When you're far away, fighting a war, what do you write to your family back home? Do you mention the terrible things you see, or do you simply reassure your family that you're okay? On this episode of Performance Today, hear music inspired by letters from the trenches of World War One: Jonathan Leshnoff's Symphony No. 3.
Chris Brubeck composed a concerto for the Canadian Brass, music with no borders between different musical styles. On this episode of Performance Today, hear the Canadian Brass and the Lexington Philharmonic perform the world premiere of "No Borders" by Chris Brubeck.
Not many pieces can match the romantic drama and sheer virtuosity of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. On this episode of Performance Today, hear a thrilling concert performance by pianist Sergio Tiempo and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
When writing his Piano Concerto No. 3, Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev wrote a single word above a particular point in the composition: "coldly." It's a chilling musical descent, entombed in the concerto's fiery heat. On Friday's Performance Today, pianist Simon Trpceski and the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra perform Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 at a concert in Stavanger, Norway.
In the 1930s, Samuel Barber's career as a composer was blossoming, and he had mixed feelings about it. All of that attention can be exhilarating AND nerve-racking. On this episode of Performance Today, hear music by a young man on the rise, the Symphony No. 1 by Samuel Barber.
In 1874, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov traveled to the northern coast of the Black Sea. The trip left a lasting impression on the composer; he was intoxicated by the Arabic and Turkish music he heard on the streets and in coffee houses. Hear these exotic impressions in a Buffalo Philharmonic performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade on this episode of Performance Today.
On this episode of Performance Today, hear a composition by Valerie Coleman named "Portraits of Josephine"... inspired by the life and times of one of the most famous entertainers of the 20th Century: Josephine Baker.
Not many pieces can match the romantic drama and sheer virtuosity of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. On this episode of Performance Today, hear a thrilling concert performance by pianist Sergio Tiempo and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
In the early 1900s, Bela Bartok traveled the dusty back-roads of eastern Europe with a heavy Edison recording machine. He recorded thousands of folk songs that, in turn, inspired his own work. On this episode of Performance Today, hear Bartok's Romanian Dances from a concert in Interlochen, Michigan.
