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

Anne-Sophie Mutter's Immortal Mendelssohn

For her new recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, Mutter traveled to the composer's old stomping ground in Leipzig, Germany, to the site where the concerto had its premiere in 1845.

Anne-Sophie Mutter's Immortal Mendelssohn

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Music News

Composer, Teacher George Perle Dies At 93

The American composer, who died Friday, embraced the early-20th-century style called 12-tone music. But he also developed his own personal spin on the methodology, giving his own music a palpable wit and lyrical punch.

Hear A Feature On Perle For His 70th Birthday (1985)

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Holiday Music

Trio Mediaeval's Norwegian Christmas

The Oslo-based trio of vocalists introduces a Norwegian Christmas tune, as well as a few traditions from their homeland, in NPR's Studio 4A. The group's latest recording has just been nominated for a Grammy Award.

Trio Mediaeval's Norwegian Christmas

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Review

Song Of The Day

Messiaen At 100: A Song For The Solar System

French composer Olivier Messiaen, who would have turned 100 Wednesday, was something of a musical misfit. His ideas about melody, harmony and rhythm seemed to fall to earth out of nowhere, fitting into no particular school of thought. And yet he changed the way people thought about music as it exists in the infinity that was, for him, his God and the universe.

Des canyons aux étoiles..., for piano, horn, xylorimba, glockenspiel & orchestra, I/51

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Music Interviews

Chicago Symphony Tops U.S. Orchestras

The city of Chicago has one more thing to boast about: Its hometown orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, has been named America's top orchestra in a new critics' poll published in the venerable British magazine Gramophone.

Chicago Symphony Tops U.S. Orchestras

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Concerts

Paul Newman's 'Lincoln Portrait' At Carnegie Hall

Along with his acting career, Paul Newman made a name for himself as a philanthropist and humanitarian, traits that made him an appropriate choice to narrate Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait, in a performance at Carnegie Hall with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

Aaron Copland: "Lincoln Portrait"

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Review

Song Of The Day

Ferron: A Road Song Repaved

Ferron's new album Boulder, her 14th release in 30 years, offers a stripped-down reworking of 10 songs, including the autobiographical "Girl on a Road." As always, she showcases her fears, philosophies, desires, and hopes with the frankness of a close friend and the insight of a therapist.

Girl on a Road

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Music Interviews

Pressler Bids Adieu To Beaux Arts Trio

The Beaux Arts Trio, with founder Menahem Pressler, will play its final U.S. concert at the Tanglewood Music Festival on Thursday night, 53 years after the group got its start there. The farewell performance will stream live at NPR.org.

Pressler Bids Adieu To Beaux Arts Trio

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Classics in Concert

Beaux Arts Trio Bids Farewell At Tanglewood

American Public Media

Led by founding member Menahem Pressler, the Beaux Arts Trio performs an emotion-laden final U.S. concert at the Tanglewood Music Festival in Massachusetts, the venue where the ensemble got its start 53 years ago.

Beaux Arts Trio Bids Farewell At Tanglewood

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Thomas Quasthoff: A Mighty 'Voice' Soars

Thomas Quasthoff. Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Music Interviews

Thomas Quasthoff: A Mighty 'Voice' Soars

"No one expects such a mighty voice to issue from my diminutive frame," the 4-foot-3 singer writes in his new memoir.

Listen to this 'Talk of the Nation' topic

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Classics in Concert

Mostly Mozart Festival in Concert

WNYC Radio

Born nearly 100 years apart, Mozart and Mahler shared a knack for writing transcendent music under stress. Live from the Mostly Mozart Festival, hear Mozart's 40th Symphony, filled with pride and pain, and Mahler's ode to eternity, The Song of the Earth.

Mostly Mozart Festival in Concert

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Classics in Concert

Robert Schumann Reconsidered at Carnegie Hall

WNYC Radio

Schumann's Piano Concerto was the result of a major rewrite. Paul Chihara did a little reworking of his own on Schumann's Overture, Scherzo and Finale. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra plays both remodeled pieces at Carnegie Hall.

Overture, Scherzo, Finale; Piano Concerto

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