Performance Today®

On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll take a trip to Catfish Row to explore the alleys and atmosphere that inspired George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Plus, we'll hear some Gershwin from the Spoleto Festival in Charleston.

Cellist Alisa Weilerstein loves playing at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina; she says that it's a unique and very special kind of experience. On Wednesday's Performance Today, we'll talk more with Weilerstein about Spoleto, and we'll hear her perform a piano trio.

Charleston, South Carolina, is a city full of history and music. On Tuesday's Performance Today, join us for highlights from this year's Spoleto Festival, including a stunning performance of Mendelssohn's Piano Sextet.

What's the point of musical technique? According to pianist Andre Watts, technique allows you to create at will what you hear in your inner ear. On Monday's Performance Today, we'll hear what's going on in Watts' inner ear when he plays Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2.

Frank Dominguez is the founder and host of Concierto, a weekly bilingual program featuring classical music by Latin American and Spanish composers and musicians. On this weekend's Performance Today, Dominguez joins Fred in the studio with a few choice cuts by Latin American composers.

Frank Dominguez is the founder and host of Concierto, a weekly bilingual program featuring classical music by Latin American and Spanish composers and musicians. On Friday's Performance Today, Dominguez joins Fred in the studio with a few choice cuts by Latin American composers.

When little Igor Stravinsky was 11 years old, he saw the great composer Tchaikovsky conducting. That memory stayed with him, and in 1928, Stravinsky paid homage to Tchaikovsky by borrowing and adapting his music for a ballet. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear both the story and the music from a concert in Tallinn, Estonia.

Recently, American violinist Joshua Bell called Alexander Glazunov's Violin Concerto "real juicy violin stuff." On Wednesday's Performance Today, we'll take a musical trip to Cincinnati to hear Bell play that very concerto in concert with the Cincinnati Symphony.

What could a pampered young man possibly know about the big questions of life and death? Well, in his monumental piece, "Death and Transfiguration," the 20-something Richard Strauss wrote about our hopes, fears, and most profound revelations. On Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll hear it performed in concert in Copenhagen.