Tom Huizenga Tom Huizenga is a music producer for NPR Digital Media.
Tom Huizenga
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Tom Huizenga

Mito-Habe Evans
Tom Huizenga
Mito-Habe Evans

Tom Huizenga

Music Producer

Tom Huizenga is a producer for NPR Music. He contributes a wide range of stories about classical music to NPR's news programs and is the classical music reviewer for All Things Considered. He appears regularly on NPR Music podcasts and founded NPR's classical music blog Deceptive Cadence in 2010.

Joining NPR in 1999, Huizenga produced, wrote and edited NPR's Peabody Award-winning daily classical music show Performance Today and the programs SymphonyCast and World of Opera.

He's produced live radio broadcasts from the Kennedy Center and other venues, including New York's (Le) Poisson Rouge, where he created NPR's first classical music webcast featuring the Emerson String Quartet.

As a video producer, Huizenga has created some of NPR Music's noteworthy music documentaries in New York. He brought mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato to the historic Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, placed tenor Lawrence Brownlee and pianist Jason Moran inside an active crypt at a historic church in Harlem, and invited composer Philip Glass to a Chinatown loft to discuss music with Devonté Hynes (aka Blood Orange).

He has also written and produced radio specials, such as A Choral Christmas With Stile Antico, broadcast on stations around the country.

Prior to NPR, Huizenga served as music director for NPR member station KRWG, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and taught in the journalism department at New Mexico State University.

Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Huizenga's radio career began at the University of Michigan, where he produced and hosted a broad range of radio programs at Ann Arbor's WCBN-FM. He holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan in English literature and ethnomusicology.

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STILLPOINT is the first album in 12 years from pianist Awadagin Pratt. Rob Davidson/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Rob Davidson/Courtesy of the artist

After 12 years, pianist Awadagin Pratt rediscovers his sweet spot

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Friday

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Dvorak's beloved 'New World' symphony was an anthem to what American music could be

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Thursday

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Members of the Icelandic band Sigur Rós (left to right: Kjartan Sveinsson, Jón Ϸór Birgisson and Georg Hólm) have released ÁTTA, their first album in 10 years. Tim Dunk/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Tim Dunk/Courtesy of the artist

On a new Sigur Rós album, warmth and light push through the darkness

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Friday

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Anna Thorvaldsdottir begins her composing process by drawing shapes and writing words to help store musical information. Her scores themselves are finely detailed. Hrafn Asgeirsson/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Hrafn Asgeirsson/Courtesy of the artist

Friday

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Friday

Soprano Jessye Norman left a number of recordings in the vault at the time of her death. Now some of them have been released for the first time. Decca Archives hide caption

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Decca Archives

The voice of Jessye Norman soars again in trove of unreleased recordings

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Wednesday

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Missy Mazzoli's new album, Dark with Excessive Bright, features the composer's orchestral compositions. Caroline Tompkins/courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Caroline Tompkins/courtesy of the artist

Missy Mazzoli is a symphonic composer with a photographer's eye

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Missy Mazzoli's next opera, Lincoln in the Bardo, was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera and is slated for a 2025 production. Caroline Tompkins/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Caroline Tompkins/Courtesy of the artist