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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Ten albums released this year that you absolutely, positively won't want to miss — from marquee artists like Cecilia Bartoli and Michael Tilson Thomas to fresh discoveries, including American composer Michael Harrison, Denmark's Vagn Holmboe and a forgotten Baroque man of mystery. -
The soprano, whose life unfolded with more tragic and triumphant twists and turns than any opera plot was celebrated for her electrifying performances and her dissident political views.
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Musicians who loved Elliott Carter and his music remember the great composer (who died last month at age 103) by discussing pieces of his music that touched them personally. They show how his long professional relationships with performers illuminated the conversational complexity of his music.
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The Swiss soprano will be remembered especially for singing songs and operas by Richard Strauss, which fit her sweet and silvery voice like couture gowns. She appeared more than 400 times at the Vienna State Opera and was a favorite at the Metropolitan Opera in the 1950s and '60s.
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From the versatility of the violin to the virtuosity of a mysterious opera composer, NPR's Tom Huizenga and host Guy Raz spin an eclectic set of the year's best classical recordings.
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British pianist Danny Driver uncovers the impetuous mood swings, curious key changes and whiplash stops and starts that define C.P.E. Bach's leading-edge style.
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Our suggestions for a playlist to accompany your Turkey Day, from cooking to dining to cleaning up, brimming with American sounds from all over the musical map.
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Cellist Matt Haimovitz was raised on a strict diet of classical music. Somewhere along the way his tastes broadened considerably. Hear an eclectic mix of music — from Nina Simone to Mstislav Rostropovich — as the adventurous cellist spins his favorites in the studio.
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In this concert at Carnegie's Zankel Hall, the group presents a pair of Beethoven's grand and enigmatic final quartets — works from the summit of a musical mountain.
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The composer, who was born in 1908 and won two Pulitzer Prizes for music that could be challenging and adventurously modern, died in New York.
