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.
-
Accordionist William Schimmel creates a daring yet touching six-minute distillation of Mahler's mighty Ninth, with detours for tango and trumpet solos by Wynton Marsalis. -
For graphic designer Denise Burt, knowing little about classical music actually helped her create cutting-edge album covers. See her work and hear the music that inspired it.
-
Eschewing a glitzy career, the pianist, who was heard in the movie Amadeus, earned a reputation as one of the greats of his generation, especially praised for his Chopin performances.
-
A skilled mountain climber who knew Tchaikovsky and Brahms, Ethel Smyth was a big personality whose politically charged opera The Wreckers gets its first fully staged production in the U.S.
-
A quartet of Icelandic women imagines the clicks and whirs of a giant clock. The blend of strings and electronics mimics the interaction of humans and machines.
-
With his large, electrifying voice and his penetrating portrayals, Canadian tenor Jon Vickers thrilled opera lovers for more than 30 years.
-
When the little-known Russian native came to guest conduct the orchestra, horn player Sarah Willis says, it was "love at first sight" — and his passion for music sets him apart.
-
Wagner's epic meditation on love turns 150. Projected on a cosmic level, the music triggered a seismic shift in Western music.
-
To mark the sesquicentennial of the Danish composer's birth, music critic Michael Steinberg introduces Nielsen's exuberant music, confirming his stature as one of the truly great symphonists.
-
This week's Drum Fill Friday guest quizmasters are from the internationally acclaimed ensemble Sō Percussion. Hear the fill and match it to the piece.
