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

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Tom Huizenga
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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.

Story Archive

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Monday

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

Friday

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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Friday

Thursday

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

Thursday

Wednesday

Lyrics from 'One by One,' written by Connie Converse, will stay with you

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Monday

Bad Bunny, performing in Miami on Aug. 12, 2022. The Puerto Rican superstar's wordplay was front-of-mind for Alt.Latino co-host Anamaria Sayre this year. Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images hide caption

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Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images

Wednesday

Friday

The classical singer Julia Bullock has released Walking in the Dark, her debut solo album. Grant Legan/Nonesuch Records hide caption

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Grant Legan/Nonesuch Records

With a bold debut album, Julia Bullock curates an unconventional career

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Thursday

Julia Bullock's Walking in the Dark is one of NPR Music's top 10 classical albums of 2022. Photo illustration: Jackie Lay/NPR / Photo: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images hide caption

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Photo illustration: Jackie Lay/NPR / Photo: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

Friday

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Tuesday

Artists featured on the best music of October episode (from top left, clockwise): Maral, Open Mike Eagle, Natalia Lafourcade, Víkingur Ólafsson, Plains. Courtesy of the artists hide caption

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Courtesy of the artists

NPR's favorite music of October, from ancestral grooves to hip-hop nostalgia

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Wednesday

Top row, left to right: Phoebe Bridgers, Andrew Bird, Sunny War; Bottom row, left to right: John Cale, Weyes Blood Courtesy of the artists hide caption

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Courtesy of the artists

A Halloween mix: Phoebe Bridgers and Andrew Bird, Sunny War, John Cale, more

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Monday