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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The celebrated singer Thomas Hampson found himself in a verbal boxing match, defending opera and classical music from an unusually contentious host on a recent British talk show.
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Five acclaimed American conductors and composers — from Pulitzer Prize winners Jennifer Higdon and David Lang to the Atlanta Symphony's Robert Spano — pick their favorite homegrown symphonic works. -
In person, the members of Time for Three come off as just three dudes in a band. But with their staggering technique and freewheeling genre-crossing, it's hard not to be swept up in the force of their contagious energy. Hear the "classically trained garage band" perform in the NPR Music offices.
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The beloved star of the Metropolitan Opera is revered for her portrayals of Puccini heroines, especially Madama Butterfly. Her service to opera includes creating the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation, which supports emerging singers.
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If we can argue over the great American novel, what about the great American symphony? Join our exploration of the American symphony, who writes the best ones these days and who wants to hear them?
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From an intriguing East meets West merger to Vivaldi played with velocity, NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and host Jacki Lyden explore a wide range of new classical releases.
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Summer is heating up and so are dozens of classical music festivals all around the country. We couldn't possibly list them all, but here's a sampling of some of the best festivals, from open-air venues and seaside spots to historic concert halls.
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From the sweet melodies by Bach to the quiet sound world of Morton Feldman, sample three fascinating new albums by today's top fiddlers.
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For a film built almost completely from rehearsals on a bare stage, there's a surprising amount of drama — especially between a stage director and his charismatic star, French soprano Natalie Dessay.
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Watch the energetic conductor take flight conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in Stravinsky's iconic score. A recently released DVD of a 1966 performance includes an interview with Bernstein, in which he says the famously brutal music "makes a marvelous kind of savage sound."
