Tom Huizenga
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.
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The eclectic composer joins members of the ACME ensemble for some of his most affecting music, which moves the audience to tears.
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When it comes to the Underground Railroad, everyone knows Harriet Tubman. But a new oratorio sheds light on a different, key figure named William Still. -
Watch the celebrated opera star deconstruct old Italian love songs with her signature flair, backed by a crack jazz ensemble.
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The irrepressible harpist proves that the instrument can be as tempestuous as a tango, as complex as a Bach fugue and sing as serenely as a church choir.
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NPR Music staffers Marissa Lorusso and Tom Huizenga give out superlatives for the best moments in music this past year, including a single breath of operatic singing and an epic guitar solo. -
As a new decade approaches, hear 10 extraordinary classical albums well-equipped to propel the music into the future. -
On her new album, the restless Italian opera star sings virtuoso music composed for Farinelli, the greatest of the baroque castratos. -
The insightful pianist offers a Beethoven bonanza, ranging from the mesmerizing pulse of the popular "Moonlight" Sonata to flashes of wry humor and tender beauty. -
Before any opera purists start wringing their hands, let's remember that the 400-year-old art form has proven itself terrifically adaptable and resilient. -
What do Gertrude Stein, Billy Joel and Robert Burns have in common? Their words all show up in a new song by Pulitzer-winning composer Caroline Shaw.
