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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From Pre-Colombian sounds to hip-hop, Mexico's musical heritage is eclectic. To celebrate Mexican Independence Day and National Hispanic Heritage Month, test your knowledge of Mexican music. -
In music from Giuseppe Verdi to Jennifer Higdon, celebrate the sound of the venturesome Atlanta Symphony Orchestra while it's silenced by a bitter labor dispute.
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The intensely expressive Italian singer had an unusually long career. "I always have the sense that when I hear her recordings that she's singing just for me," says soprano Renée Fleming.
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Mozart and Beethoven aren't going anywhere, but U.S. orchestras, opera companies and chamber groups are also presenting dozens of compelling premieres.
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Three centuries ago, Domenico Scarlatti churned out 555 keyboard sonatas. Today, pianists, harpsichordists and even accordionists still can't get enough. Hear a clutch of new recordings.
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The end of summer has a tendency to sneak up on us — or come to an unsettling halt. Try a quiz filled with fantastic finales and tremulous terminations.
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To mark the apparent end of the Metropolitan Opera's labor crisis, try a nerdworthy quiz — and learn a few quirky things about America's largest performing arts organization.
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The Pacifica Quartet explores the world of Soviet-era composer Dmitri Shostakovich. Watch the group play selections from his introspective cycle of string quartets.
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The organist aims to rescue his instrument from its church-bound traditions. With his new album, which includes Bach and Bacharach alike, Carpenter could land a multitude of converts.
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Composer Robert Kyr frequently travels to northern New Mexico, where he writes rapturous music inspired by light, stone, stillness and prayer.
