From the Top

Show 328's Bonus Content Podcast

From Boston Massachusetts this week's episode features a 12-year-old cellist performing a show piece by David Popper, we hear a moving setting of a Newfoundland folks song performed by the Young Women's Chamber Choir of Boston's famous Handel and Haydn Society ... and we'll meet a Boston teenager so zealous about studying classical music, he managed to cram 4 instruments, 2 Boston orchestras and a chorus into his life.

Featuring nearly twice as much music as From the Top's regular episodes, this highlights program celebrates some of the best performances by young people From the Top has presented over the past couple of seasons. An irresistibly charming 11-year-old violinist performs the music of Claude Debussy, a teenage soprano describes her charmed meeting with the great opera diva Renee Fleming, and we'll hear one of the greatest young trumpet players we've ever had on the program perform Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

From San Jose, California, this week's From the Top is an all-Californian show featuring young musicians exclusively from The Golden State. A multi-competition-winning choir from Northern California performs a traditional spiritual; a 16-year-old pianist performs a powerfully evocative piece by a Turkish composer; and we meet a teenage guitarist from San Francisco who, with very little resources, began in music by teaching himself through YouTube videos and has since emerged to become a very original composer.

Back at our home in Jordan Hall in Boston, this week's From the Top features a wonderful diversity of young musicians, including a teenage cellist who's making her way on her own in America after moving here from Belarus; a boy from Nashville, Tennessee, who's carrying on the great guitar tradition of that city; and a pianist from the Boston area who's just eleven years old.

The world-renowned cellist Matt Haimovitz returns to From the Top as the special guest artist of this week's program from the San Francisco Conservatory. With the young performers on the program, Maestro Haimovitz performs a very unusual piece—a children's musical storybook called "Angel Heart" with music by Luna Pearl Woolf — featuring the internationally best-selling children's author Cornelia Funke as its narrator. And there's still the regular lineup of outstanding young musicians, including a 14-year-old violinist performing one of Sarasate's most spirited show pieces.

From the Top returns to the Aspen Music Festival and School to feature the fantastic young musicians studying there during the summer. A 15-year-old pianist performs a thrilling piece by Gyorgy Ligeti, we meet a young harpist who at her young age has already soloed with the Israeli Philharmonic and gone on tour with a rock star, and a From the Top alum who became the first classical guitarist to graduate from Juilliard revisits the program.

In the contemporary spirit of performance trends like Groupmuse in which young performers organize impromptu house concerts to play chamber music, From the Top presents its first "House Concert" from Boston, Massachusetts, and it has a decidedly more intimate feel. A cellist who's just 11 years old performs the music of David Popper, and we meet a teenage classical guitarist who's also a poet, a neuroscience nerd, and a serious skateboarder.

Recorded in front of a live audience in the television studios of Ideastream, Cleveland Ohio's public media station, this week's From the Top features an Octet of Cleveland area kids performing the music of Mendelssohn, we meet a young pianist who co-founded a youth orchestra as a teenager and a teenage bassoonist with an outspoken and playful personality performs the music of Weber.

From Montclair, New Jersey, this week's From the Top features the world-renowned Shanghai String Quartet making a special guest appearance. Two lucky teenage performers get the privilege of joining the quartet in a thrilling performance of the music of Johannes Brahms. We'll also listen to the music a young cellist has chosen to populate his playlists on Spotify—playlists cleverly designed to persuade his high school friends to become fans of classical music.

From our home in Boston, Massachusetts, this week's episode features an 11-year-old who is not only a precocious violinist, but who also happens to be a budding meteorologist—his long-term forecasts on YouTube are impressively accurate. A young cellist performs the gorgeous Andante movement from Rachmaninoff's Sonata in G minor, and we'll meet a pianist who, at the age of 14, has recorded all of the Opus 25 Chopin piano études.

From the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, this week's From the Top features a remarkably bold and confident performance by a 14-year-old violinist from South Florida, a young soprano from New Orleans performing a musical setting of one of Emily Dickinson's poems, and an oboist who, in addition to possessing an enormous library of classical music, is a wonderful teenage spokesperson for the genre.

From Denver, Colorado, this week's episode features a special guest appearance by one of America's finest living film composers, Danny Elfman. Our young musicians perform arrangements of his music from the soundtracks of "Milk" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas." Mr. Elfman also shares stories from his own colorful teenage years, and a phenomenal 17-year-old from New York performs the music of Lowell Liebermann.

This week's From the Top features students studying at one of America's most famous training programs for young musicians—the Interlochen Arts Academy—in rural Michigan. We meet the winners of the Academy's concerto competition, and the mighty Interlochen Arts Academy Orchestra performs a world premiere inspired by the story of The Three Musketeers.

From Louisville, Kentucky, this week's From the Top features a superb 17-year-old pianist from Brooklyn who wants to devote himself to the work of racially diversifying the world of classical music. We'll also hear an entrancing performance of "Over the Rainbow" performed on marimba by the local teen percussionist, and the Louisville Youth Orchestra perform a brand new piece by American composer Christopher Theofanidis.