Performance Today®

When he was growing up in Vienna, nobody in Rudolf Buchbinder's house played music. But for some reason, the family had a piano. It was more of a furniture piece, he says, until he started to imitate music he had heard on the radio on the piano. Very quickly, he became the youngest student ever accepted at the Vienna Conservatory. Buchbinder has grown up to have a tremendous career as a pianist. We'll hear him on the radio, playing Beethoven, on Thursday's Performance Today.

Many classical musicians practice by doing the same thing over and over again. It limits the risk of something unexpected happening. Recorder player Matthias Maute has a different philosophy: "no risk, no fun." We'll hear Maute improvise with a set of Baroque pieces on Wednesday's Performance Today, from APM.

Violinist Joshua Bell performs in the studio with pianist Sam Haywood and talks about his new role as music director for The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

Violinist Joshua Bell has played with the some of the best orchestras in the world, giving him a chance to glean some insider advice from some the best conductors in the world. Bell is now putting that advice to good use, conducting the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields in a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 4. We'll hear that piece, and Joshua Bell performs a short Sonatina by Schubert in the PT studios.

On a lonesome drive through the mountains of Wyoming, Ranaan Meyer found himself in a place with no cell phone service. He couldn't even find a station to listen to on his car radio. With no distractions, and only the mountains for company, this music began to take shape in his head. We'll hear that music: it's called Wyoming 307, named after the area code.

The great American pianist Van Cliburn has died. He was 78 years old. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll remember this legendary musician. We'll hear newsreel footage from his 1958 win at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. We'll hear from his friends. We'll hear from musicians he inspired. And we'll hear archival recordings of the man himself.

When he was a teenager in the early 1920s, Dmitri Shostakovich played piano in movie theaters for silent films. A few years later, he wrote a Piano Concerto that in places almost sounds like music he might have riffed for a Charlie Chaplin comedy. It's the rollicking, jazz-inflected Piano Concerto No. 1 by Shostakovich. We'll hear a powerhouse performance by Olga Kern (pictured) and the Nashville Symphony.

The great American pianist Van Cliburn has died. He was 78 years old. On Thursday's Performance Today, we'll remember this legendary musician. We'll hear newsreel footage from his 1958 win at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. We'll hear from his friends. We'll hear from musicians he inspired. And we'll hear archival recordings of the man himself.

Choral composer Eric Whitacre says, "I thought I was going to be a pop star. I never in my wildest dreams imagined I'd be a classical composer." Now at age 43, Whitacre has achieved the kind of star status he once dreamed of. But not in the pop world. He's a kind of rock star of contemporary choral composers. He has nearly 100,000 Facebook fans. Has his own choir, the Eric Whitacre Singers. Some young fans have even gotten Eric Whitacre tattoos. In today's show, Whitacre leads a choir of over 100 singers in one of his own works, "Sleep."