PT's Milestones of the Millennium Series

Milestones of the Millennium is a two-year series of radio essays airing weekly on NPR's Performance Today® through the end of this year. Drawing on a wide range of concert and commercial recordings, the series creates a picture in sound of the pivotal events, places, movements, artists and musical works of the past 1000 years. Commentators include the award-winning biographer Jan Swafford, writer Thomas Kelly, highly respected pianist and writer Charles Rosen and biographer Harlow Robinson.

From the premiere essay in the series, featuring biographer Swafford speaking on Johann Sebastian Bach, Milestones has seen several outstanding highlights, including installments on the evolution of the piano, with pianist and author Charles Rosen; improvisation in classical music, with Harvard professor and master improviser, Robert Levin; another Harvard scholar, Thomas Kelly, on Straviinsky's The Rite of Spring; film music critic Royal S. Brown great music in film; and an examination of the influence of jazz on classical music.

The most recent shows published online feature three groundbreaking musicians and composers that not only created their own niche but changed the course of music history. Learn about Debussy, Palestrina, and Beethoven's great string quartets.

To hear broadcasts of the series, check with your local NPR stations for exact schedules in your area. Return to this Web site for more information about upcoming segments, online versions of the commentaries and archives of the series.

For the Milestones of the Millennium project, NPR has joined forces with Sony Classical™. The program series will be accompanied by Sony's release of historic recordings highlighting the development of music over the past 1000 years. Each Sony Classical compact disc will contain musical choices inspired by the series, with liner notes written by the NPR commentators.