Performance Today®

You'll find themes of forbidden love and tragic loss in William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet. Those same themes were also present in Peter Tchaikovsky's own life, from which he found inspiration as he wrote music on Shakespeare's feuding families and star-crossed lovers. We'll hear an electrifying performance of the Fantasy Overture from Romeo and Juliet with Kurt Masur conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. On Friday's Performance Today, from APM.

With its potent mix of fury and fear, punctuated with hammering chords and explosive bass drum bangs, the Requiem Mass is one of Verdi's most striking choral works.

Celebrate Giuseppe Verdi's 200th birthday with Performance Today! Host Fred Child chats with Will Berger at the Metropolitan Opera about Verdi's impact and legacy in the world of opera. We'll also sit in on Verdi's epic Requiem Mass with the Chicago Symphony and Chorus with Ricardo Muti conducting. On Thursday's Performance Today, from APM.

El Sistema is a music education initiative started in Venezuela, a movement also rapidly growing in the United States. PT host Fred Child talks with Stanford Thompson, a national leader of El Sistema in America, about the impact of music education for society. Also on the show, this week's Piano Puzzler and music inspired from a scene at the 1889 World Exposition in Paris. On Wednesday's Performance Today, from APM.

Stanford Thompson is the Executive Director of "Play On Philly!," a music education program in Philadelphia. He's also the chair of the National Alliance of El Sistema-inspired Programs. He spoke with Fred Child about music education.

There's not much pianist Emanuel Ax hasn't done: won Grammy Awards, check; Avery Fisher Prize, check; soloed more than 100 times with the New York Philharmonic, check. But there's a first for everything. We'll hear Ax perform J.S. Bach's Keyboard No. 1 for the first time with Alan Gilbert and the New York Philharmonic. Plus, a thrilling performance of Antonin Dvorak's 7th Symphony led by Nikolaj Znaider in Paris, France. On Tuesday's Performance Today, from APM.

Pianist Angela Hewitt plays a wide range of keyboard music, but she keeps coming back to one particular composer who has always felt like a great friend: Johann Sebastian Bach. We'll hear Hewitt in concert in suburban Atlanta, playing Bach's French Suite at the piano. Plus, a performance from a 2013 MacArthur Genius Grant award winner, pianist and writer Jeremy Denk, on Monday's Performance Today, from APM.

Conductor JoAnn Falletta has a real knack for bringing forgotten musical treasures to light. She leads the Buffalo Philharmonic in Franz Schreker's "Prelude to a Drama," an important opera in the early 20th century. Plus, this week's Piano Puzzler with Bruce Adolphe, this weekend on Performance Today, from APM.

Where is the line between classical and jazz? Pianist Stephen Prutsman has the highest credentials in both worlds, from Baroque to Bepop. Stephen Prutsman joins PT host Fred Child to talk music and improvise at the keyboard. Plus, our weekly 21st century spotlight is a daring work for solo trumpet and string orchestra from Scottish composer James MacMillan, on Friday's Performance Today, from APM.