From the Top

From Davis, California, this week's From the Top features young performers who are all major competition winners. We enjoy their superb performances including a fearless 11-year-old violinist performing the music of Sarasate, a teenage classical guitarist from Tennessee performing a transcription of the music of Chopin, and a wonderful young flutist who won a competition by beatboxing on the instrument. There's also a playful music trivia quiz customized for these high achievers. A competition about … competitions. 

This week's From the Top comes to you from the Texas State International Piano Festival in San Marcos, Texas. Appropriately, all the performances on the program include the piano. We'll enjoy one of Maurice Ravel's best-loved pieces for solo piano performed by an expressive 16-year-old from New Jersey and we'll hear a new piece for piano and voice written by a composer who's just 13-years-old.

From Costa Mesa in Orange County, California, this week's show features the winning chorus of the L.A. Area's "Local Vocal High School Choir Sing-Off" — a wonderful expressive group from a small California town. Also the Principal Flutist of Pacific Symphony (a From the Top alumnus) performs a lively flute duet with a local teenage flutist and a 16-year-old cellist performs the Andante from Rachmaninoff's sublime Sonata in G minor.

From Greensburg, Pennsylvania this week's From the Top features one of the strongest teenage string quartets in America performing the beautiful music of Leos Janacek, a local 12-year-old pianist plays one of Aaron Copland’s most playful pieces, and we'll meet a tenacious 16-year-old who was invited to the prestigious Menuhin International Violin Competition and though she received no honor there, found that the experience really sealed her future as a violinist.

This week From the Top returns to its home, Jordan Hall, in Boston with a line up of superb young musicians including a teenager who, having stuck with the recorder since the 4th grade, has become a young virtuoso on the instrument ... a 13-year-old cellist who performs the music of Tchaikovsky and then shares with us his unusually in-depth knowledge about mushroom harvesting ... and a jaw-droppingly good 9-year-old violinist who's read pretty much every Nancy Drew book written.

From the Top is teaming up with the Boston Children’s Chorus to present a special celebration on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Join host Christopher O’Riley, young musicians from around the country and the Boston Children’s Chorus for an hour of music and personal stories that would make Dr. King smile with pride.

This show features the amazing music and stories our alumni musicians have made since appearing on our From the Top. You’ll hear from a cellist, violist, pianist, and two composers, who are negotiating life as 20-somethings and who are all involved in cutting edge musical activities.

From North Carolina, this week's show features the return appearance of a From the Top alumnus who went on to win a top prize at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition this year. He's the first American to become a medalist in over sixteen years. We'll also meet a teenage bassoonist with a beautifully poetic story about the wilderness of New England and how it has moved his heart and shaped his music.

From El Paso, Texas, this week's From the Top features an extremely expressive 13-year-old clarinetist from California performing the music of Weber, a hugely confident teen violinist from El Paso performing Wieniawski's Polonaise Brilliante, and a young organist who wins From the Top's Stereotype Smasher of the Year award.

From Stanford University, this week's From the Top features an all-California crew of performers including an extraordinary 12-year-old guitarist from the Bay Area performing the music of Villa-Lobos; the San Francisco Girls Chorus singing a beautiful arrangement of a song from Joni Mitchell's first album; and a funny story about a young pianist who found himself destroying his own piano by practicing too much.

From our broadcast home, Boston, Massachusetts, this week's From the Top features a pianist who, at the age of nine, was the youngest performer ever to sign with the recoding label, EMI. A phenomenal 16-year-old violinist tackles one of the most difficult and dazzling pieces for unaccompanied violin, and we'll meet a 17-year-old who, having grown up in one of the toughest neighborhoods in San Francisco, has emerged to become a formidable young mezzo-soprano.

From the Top travels to the Aspen Music Festival and School this week to meet the amazing young musicians who’ve gathered there to study. We’ll hear one of Tchaikovsky’s most playful pieces performed by a talented 16-year-old violinist … we'll hear a wonderfully passionate young pianist perform Preludes by Debussy … and we'll learn how that pianist defied the odds and managed to find his way to America from a very small, rural village in southern China.

From Tucson Arizona, From the Top this week features an unusually expressive 11-year-old violinist performing the last composition Debussy ever wrote ... we'll hear one of the best teenage trumpet players in the country perform an exhilarating arrangement of Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin ... and we'll meet a talented young classical guitarist from Tucson who is a budding naturalist with a rather eccentric job at a university research lab studying ants.

From Sarasota, Florida this week's From the Top features an outstandingly expressive and precise 14-year-old guitarist performing the music of Augustin Barrios  … a teenage horn player whose practice regimen has inspired the invention of a new word … and a teenage pianist whose family is part Lebanese, part Guatemalan, part Japanese and part Floridian.

From Davis, California, this week's From the Top features young performers who are all major competition winners. We enjoy their superb performances including a fearless 11-year-old violinist performing the music of Sarasate, a teenager classical guitarist from Tennessee performing a transcription of the music of Chopin and a wonderful young flutist who won a competition by beatboxing on the instrument. There's also a playful music trivia quiz customized for these high achievers. A competition about ... competitions.