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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In classical music, percussionists go wild with drums of all shapes and sizes. Can you guess which pieces spotlight the timpani, snare and bass drums? -
Author Jan Swafford has just published a Beethoven biography — and he's sharing surprising facts he learned while writing his book. See some here and join us at noon today for a session on Reddit.
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Think opera plots are tough to follow? Try wading through the complicated action offstage at the Metropolitan Opera. Here's who's involved — with perspective on disputes that aren't new.
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One hundred years after the start of World War I, hear a range of pop and classical music from artists of the era. Some music reflects the war's violence, some gives solace.
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From movies and musicals to hit songs, the French national anthem has been appropriated in many contexts. Are you enough of a Francophile to spot them?
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A birthday salute to a famed Italian tenor who knew how to guard his vocal resources. Not as loud or imposing as his rivals, Bergonzi sang with elegance and intensity for decades.
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Know your Sylvan Esso from your Future Islands, or Ana Tijoux from André Laos? Test your knowledge of current music in this puzzler and discover the year's best songs.
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Watch the innovative musician play his mini Stratocaster of a violin in pieces that celebrate complex textures — and NPR News themes.
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To mark the changing of the season, test your ears in a musical puzzler inspired by warm summer evenings and the promise of romance.
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Know your "Marseillaise" from your "God Save the Queen?" If you fancy yourself a World Cup know-it-all, try matching the team to its national anthem in this musical puzzler.
