Performance Today®

Phoenix Avalon knew he wanted to play the violin before he even really knew how to say it. Meet 16-year-old Phoenix Avalon, PT's Young Artist in Residence, on Wednesday's Performance Today.

Listen to in-studio interviews with host Fred Child and exclusive musical performances by violinist Phoenix Avalon and pianist Hsin-I Huang.

The final movement of Mahler's Symphony No. 6 is epic. 30 minutes of emotional energy that bursts with dramatic tension, culminating in three powerful hammer blows. We'll hear the Boston Symphony perform it in concert, with conductor Andris Nelsons, on Tuesday's Performance Today.

With some reluctance, Frederic Chopin left Poland for Vienna at the age of 20, carrying an urn filled with soil from his beloved home country. He never returned to Poland, but the composer, literally and musically, was never far from his homeland. In 1849, Chopin was laid to rest at the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, and the urn from Poland is still at his side. On Monday's Performance Today, hear Wu Han in concert, playing Frederic Chopin's Polonaise in B-flat Major.

On Saturday's Performance Today, hear the River Oaks Chamber Orchestra's world premiere performance of Jabberwocky, by composer Anthony DiLorenzo. Also featured are performances by the Shanghai String Quartet, Miami String Quartet, the London Symphony Orchestra, and more.

After composing his string quartet known as "Intimate Voices", Jean Sibelius wrote, "It's the kind of music that brings a smile to your lips at the hour of death." Sibelius had just been diagnosed with cancer - he believed he had been given a death sentence - yet the composer lived another 48 years. Hear the quartet with a life of its own, String Quartet in D minor 'Voces intimae', on Friday's Performance Today.

It's a story of revenge. King Frederick the Great tried to humiliate Johann Sebastian Bach by giving him an awkward tune and asking him to improvise around it. The king was good, but Bach was great. The story and Bach's revenge, played by the Los Angeles Philharmonic on Thursday's Performance Today.

On Wednesday's Performance Today, pianist Mitsuko Uchida plays a quietly dramatic piano concerto by Mozart in concert with the Cleveland Orchestra.

Craig Hella Johnson for years thought about how to respond to the brutal death of Matthew Shepard in 1998. Music helped him cope with the event and that's when he realized this was a Passion story, like the ones composed by Bach, Mendelssohn and Penderecki. Eighteen years later, the vocal ensemble Conspirare brings this music to life.