American Public Media’s Performance Today® is America’s most popular classical music radio program and a winner of the 2014 Gabriel Award for artistic achievement. The show is broadcast on hundreds of public radio stations across the country, including at 1 p.m. central weekdays on Minnesota Public Radio. More information about our stations can be found at APM Distribution.
On the 40th anniversary of his death, we'll honor the civil rights leader with performances by gospel great Mahalia Jackson, the Atlanta Symphony, soprano Measha Brueggergosman and the Emerson String Quartet. We'll also have reminiscences from King's friend and colleague, Andrew Young, as well as a Joseph Schwantner piece inspired by King, narrated by Vernon Jordan and performed by Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony.
Anima Eterna plays Beethoven's Sixth Symphony in a way in which you've likely never heard it before. Striving for a sound as authentic to the composer's era as possible, it's a smaller orchestra that plays on period instruments. The group's founder, Jos van Immerseel, leads them in concert at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Whatever the enigma is behind Sir Edward Elgar's "Enigma Variations" - and we've had theories posited on "Performance Today" - it's still magnificent music, a grand showcase for an outstanding orchestra. Peter Oundjian will lead one, the Toronto Symphony, at a concert in Toronto.
We'll go to a new concert hall in Copenhagen, take a tour, and talk with violinist Hilary Hahn and pianist Lang Lang about playing there. Then we'll stay in Copenhagen for a performance of a Haydn symphony by Adam Fischer and the Danish Radio Sinfonietta.
The classical music writer for the New Yorker magazine reads from his best-selling book, "The Rest is Noise," and talks about Stravinsky before we hear Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic play music from "The Rite of Spring."
O.K., we don't have them playing together. But cellist Yo-Yo Ma will talk about developing his own style before he plays the Dvorak concerto with Hans Graf and the Houston Symphony. And pianist Lang Lang joins Fred Child in the studio for some conversation and a Chinese folk tune.
There are few more stirring and majestic works than Igor Stravinsky's "Firebird" Suite. And there are few more stirring and majestic settings than the Grand Teton Mountains of Wyoming. We'll go there to hear Andrey Boreyko lead the Grand Teton Festival Orchestra in Stravinsky's "Firebird."
Antonin Dvorak was inspired by the sound of birds when he wrote his Eighth Symphony. But it's also a work of widely varying emotions, of ebullient joy and deep sorrow. From Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, David Robertson leads the L.A. Philharmonic in a stirring performance.
Has a new portrait of Mozart been discovered? Mozart scholar Daniel Leeson thinks so, and he'll explain the key clues uncovered in his investigation. Then we'll go to Cincinnati, where flutist Sharon Bezaly plays Mozart's Second Flute Concerto and Andante for Flute and Orchestra with Paavo Jarvi and the Cincinnati Symphony.
