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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Everything about this Mazurka is dreamy, floating along as if Chopin made up the music on the spot in a great opium cloud.
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A remarkable American composer was also one of the country's finest critics. Another leading critic reflects on both his predecessor's work and music journalism today.
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Pulitzer-winning music critic Tim Page had been good at pretty much everything, until he had a life-threatening traumatic brain injury. He talks with NPR about piecing together a new life.
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Follow the young South African soprano's fairytale rise to fame in a travelogue of classic arias and scenes by Rossini, Delibes and Bellini.
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From operas about Steve Jobs and Alice in Wonderland to an orchestral evocation of Detroit and a new concerto for Yo-Yo Ma, the new concert season is flush with premieres.
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Hear the self-described "accidental brass quartet" put a new spin on an old British ballad in an evocative arrangement by Nico Muhly and Sam Amidon.
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Opera geeks always surge with excitement when a favorite singer releases a new album. Hear a heart-rending sneak preview from Verismo, from the acclaimed Russian soprano.
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A Manhattan socialite, who sold out Carnegie Hall in 1944 despite having a very dodgy voice, inspired a new movie starring Meryl Streep — and aided generations of actual singers.
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As the Summer Olympics start, celebrate the glories of Brazilian music — from bossa nova to the rollicking Northeastern forró of Luiz Gonzaga and the classical mixology of Villa-Lobos.
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Watch the genial violinist commune with nearly 300-year-old music by J.S. Bach, played on an instrument built during the composer's heyday.