Peter and Zoltan Katona are a globetrotting guitar duo from Hungary. Their energetic playing spans numerous genres including flamenco, jazz, and Baroque music. On Tuesday's Performance Today, the Katona Twins perform two works of their own in Seattle, Washington.
Franz Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 is dramatic, romantic, virtuosic music for piano and orchestra. On Monday's Performance Today, international superstar pianist Lang Lang teams up to perform it with a top American orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony.
Three members of the Danish String Quartet first met as teens in a summer music camp. They grew up, went to music conservatory, and acquired a Norwegian cellist. On Wednesday's Performance Today, they're in the PT studio performing a lively medley of traditional Danish folk music. Plus, composer Bruce Adolphe has this week's Piano Puzzler.
Recently, the conductorless Orpheus Chamber Orchestra has been coaching students at the Juilliard School in the art of playing orchestral music without a conductor. On Friday's Performance Today we'll hear how it went when the Juilliard Chamber Orchestra took the plunge and played the Ancient Airs and Dances by Ottorino Respighi with no one on the podium!
Thursday is the first full day of Hanukkah and the Thanksgiving Holiday. We'll celebrate both on Thursday's Performance Today, from APM. The US Marine Band performs a Hanukkah Rhapsody by American composer Stephen Bulla. Plus, an in-studio performance with the vocal ensemble Cantus singing music on the theme of thanks.
Three members of the Danish String Quartet first met as teens in a summer music camp. They grew up, went to music conservatory, and acquired a Norwegian cellist. On Wednesday's Performance Today, they're in the PT studio performing a lively medley of traditional Danish folk music. Plus, composer Bruce Adolphe has this week's Piano Puzzler.
When Mitsuko Uchida performs a Mozart Piano Concerto, she prefers to conduct while playing the piano, the same way Mozart would have done it in the 18th century. Uchida has been in close collaboration with the players of the Cleveland Orchestra for several years, playing all of the Mozart concertos. On Tuesday's Performance Today, she'll play and conduct his 23rd Piano Concerto from Severance Hall in Cleveland.
Top composers in the 1940's flocked to Hollywood to write for movies, including Igor Stravinsky. He was approached about a film depicting a Norwegian uprising against Nazi occupation. Stravinsky agreed to compose but demanded that his music wouldn't be altered. He didn't get his way, and the movie went ahead without him. On Monday's Performance Today, we'll hear Stravinsky's rejected movie score, "Four Norwegian Moods", performed by the US Marine Band.
In 1812, Beethoven composed joyful music in his Symphony No. 7, yet that time was a low point in his personal life. How could a person so unhappy write such cheerful music? That question haunted composer Kevin Puts so he decided to look for the answer by composing new music. This weekend on Performance Today, we'll hear Puts's piece "Inspiring Beethoven," in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, plus a performance of Beethoven's 7th from Dallas, Texas.
