Performance Today features recent concert performances by great classical artists from around the globe, as well as interviews, news and features. Listeners to Performance Today, on any given day, may hear from performances in the great concert halls of New York, Prague, London, Berlin and Paris. Hosted by Fred Child.
| Date | Service | |
| Monday at 1:00 pm | Classical MPR | Find a Station |
| Tuesday at 1:00 pm | Classical MPR | Find a Station |
| Wednesday at 1:00 pm | Classical MPR | Find a Station |
| Thursday at 1:00 pm | Classical MPR | Find a Station |
| Friday at 1:00 pm | Classical MPR | Find a Station |
Sure, the song 'Maria' from Leonard Bernstein's musical 'West Side Story' is lovely. For composer and conductor Tania Leon, it meant so much more. 'Maria' set in motion her dream of a possible life in America. Leon remembers her mentor, friend, salsa dancer and Spanish-speaker Leonard Bernstein.
When Bright Sheng went to the Tanglewood Summer Music Festival as a young composer, he didn't think his Peking Duck would lead to a meeting with Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein left impressed by the music and thrilled by Sheng's cooking. Those minutes in the kitchen made Sheng "Tanglewood famous," he says, and was the beginning of a long working relationship with Bernstein.
Leonard Bernstein's love of word play and competitive drive was notorious. Whether it was anagrams or mental jotto, Bernstein's former assistant Charlie Harmon says there were few who could beat him. And if you did, his daughter Jamie Bernstein said, you might wish you hadn't.
Conductor, composer, pianist Michael Tilson Thomas says few people realize how rooted Leonard Bernstein was in Jewish Theater. Thomas says that shared interest created an immediate bond between them.
In 1982, Charlie Harmon was hired to be Leonard Bernstein's assistant. The first meeting did not go exactly smoothly, but for four years, Harmon had a first row seat to the thrilling, jet set, creative and exhausting career and life of Bernstein. Harmon has written a new book about their work together called On the Road and Off the Record with Leonard Bernstein.
In 1989, just a month after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Leonard Bernstein performed a concert in East Germany for the world to see. They played Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, based on Schiller's Ode to Joy poem, but Bernstein changed one important word. Journalist Stephanie Griffith was there, reporting for the Los Angeles Times.
"It was as if Bernstein handed me a big platter with 'Career' on it and said, 'Hey kid! You want it?'" Andre Watts said yes. The pianist describes the 1963 concert that changed his life.
Leonard Bernstein didn't impress just Americans. He impressed the world. Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra's Music Director JoAnn Falletta remembers the music lessons and cigarette ashes Bernstein left in her Juilliard School conducting classes.
Those of us who knew Leonard Bernstein through his recordings loved his work. But what did Bernstein's colleagues and fellow composers think about his career? Composer Philip Glass says that, in considering Bernstein's legacy, there is a lot that he did right. But there was one thing he thinks Bernstein could have done differently.
When he was a graduate student, Richard Danielpour knew Leonard Bernstein as a mentor, a provocateur and the center of a swirling mix of celebrities. Danielpour says Bernstein was quite funny, sometimes sardonic. But there was one person he would never make fun of.
Conductor Roderick Cox is a trailblazer.
Tesfa Wondemagegnehu has been sharing the transformative art of vocal music for more than a decade.
Titus Underwood is the acting principal oboe of the Nashville Symphony.
Chi-chi Nwanoku is one of the most highly respected double bassists in the international classical arena.
Jessie Montgomery is an accomplished chamber musician, composer and music educator.
Steven Banks is an award-winning chamber musician, music educator, and composer.
Violist Nokuthula Ngwenyama is an artistic force.
Hassan Anderson is a world-class oboist and educator.
Lawrence Brownlee is one of the world's most in-demand singers.
Darin Atwater is one of the foremost music artists of his generation.