Clockwise from upper left: Confidence Man, Young Fathers, Hookworms Courtesy of the artists hide caption

Soprano Barbara Hannigan shines in let me tell you by Hans Abrahamsen. Elmer de Haas hide caption

Alessio Bax with his daughter at the Tiny Desk. Brandon Chew/NPR hide caption

After his First Symphony flopped, Sergei Rachmaninoff briefly switched careers. A London critic wrote, "It was such a spectacle as has rarely been seen anywhere in the Empire." Photo illustration by Jeff Curnow/Wikimedia Commons/Library of Congress hide caption

Serge Rachmaninoff, photographed in 1919, somewhere outside of San Francisco. Wikimedia Commons hide caption

Conductor Andris Nelsons led the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus Thursday in Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky at Carnegie Hall in New York. AJ Wilhelm for NPR hide caption

Cameron Carpenter's new album, If You Could Read My Mind, comes out Aug. 26. Thomas Grube/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

Leonard Slatkin leads the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at the Spring for Music festival at Carnegie Hall. Torsten Kjellstrand/for NPR hide caption

Classical albums we loved this year. NPR/Denise DeBelius hide caption

Yuja Wang at NPR's studio in Washington, D.C. Denise DeBelius/NPR hide caption

Van Cliburn in concert in 1993. Ron Jenkins hide caption

American pianist Earl Wild performs at his 90th-birthday recital at Carnegie Hall. courtesy of the artist hide caption