For the rest of this week, Fred Child will be leading some PT listeners on a tour of Central Europe; Valerie Kahler will host while he's away. On Tuesday's Performance Today, we'll mark the first stop of PT's tour in Prague with music by Czech composer Bedrich Smetana.
Aaron Copland was from Brooklyn. He was a city slicker who captured -- and to a certain degree, created -- what we think of as the sound of the old American West. On Monday's Performance Today, we'll hear selections from his cowboy ballet, "Billy the Kid."
All summer long, we're featuring great American music inspired by great American places as part of our PT Summer Road Trip. This weekend, we'll head to Appalachia to hear mountain music by a Jen Kruger, a Swiss composer who lives in North Carolina.
All summer long, we're featuring great American music inspired by great American places. On Friday, the next stop on our PT Summer Road Trip is Appalachia, where we'll hear mountain music by a Jen Kruger, a Swiss composer who lives in North Carolina.
What happens when you take an evocative piece for full orchestra and subtract the entire string section? The music is very much the same --- but altogether different. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll hear the US Marine Band play a string-less arrangement of Maurice Ravel's Spanish Rhapsody.
There's a big musical birthday party going on in Boston; the Handel and Haydn Society is turning 200 years old! On Wednesday's Performance Today, conductor Harry Christophers joins us to help mark this musical milestone. Plus, we'll hear selections from the Handel and Haydn Society's performance of Messiah.
In 1815, a group of Bostonians came together to form an ambitious music ensemble; they called themselves the Handel and Haydn Society. Nowadays, H+H has the distinction of being the oldest continuously performing music ensemble in the United States. Artistic Director Harry Christophers joins us to discuss the ensemble's history, their bicentennial celebration plans, and more.
Richard Wagner's operas are so dramatic, they're sometimes an inch away from self-parody. On Tuesday's Performance Today, the Cleveland Orchestra gives a serious (and seriously great) performance of the Ride of the Valkyries. Plus, we'll hear a bit of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd's take on Wagner as well.
You know how you sometimes put something down and then you just can't remember where you left it? It happens to us all -- even composers. In the 1760s, Joseph Haydn lost a cello concerto. And that concerto was missing until the 1960s -- two full centuries later! On Monday's Performance Today, we'll hear a performance of Haydn's long-lost Cello Concerto from a concert in Los Angeles.
