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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How do you attract a more diverse audience at the opera? One answer is to produce operas with characters that look more like the general citizenry. -
Riffing off a Baroque cantata, the Pulitzer-winner creates a beautiful and luminous musical balm.
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Sherrill Milnes calls it "an avalanche of sound." Jessye Norman says it's "a cloud filled with silver." Singers and critics talk about the amazing voice of Leontyne Price on her 90th birthday.
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Falling fast, jumping high and one stratospheric sky dive, are all themes explored in a new stop-motion animated video from the ensemble, yMusic.
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The performance artist reflects on Philip Glass' generous spirit, his perpetually fresh ideas and the grand experiments hatched in the lofts of SoHo in the '70s.
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Need to brush up on your Bruckner? Or discover his symphonies for the first time? Let conductor Daniel Barenboim guide you through all nine symphonies in this audio primer.
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The veteran musician specialized in French repertoire and collaborated with some of the world's most famous opera singers, including Maria Callas.
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Borrowing from Persian music and American jazz, two Iranian women come together to create a singular sound.
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Hear a slightly off-kilter collection of beloved carols, Hanukkah favorites and works by Prokofiev, Mahler and Thomas Adès.
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The contentious presidential election colored the listening habits of NPR's classical producer.
