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 the mountains to the prairies, coast to coast, America's festivals celebrate new and old music in unforgettable settings. -
Hear a new performance of Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait with Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell.
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Join the formidable young pianist in his practice studio as he traverses the master's piano sonatas.
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Hear the vocal ensemble sing a 16th-century story of a soldier's promises to a pretty maiden in the home of its bass, Craig Phillips.
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Eavesdrop on the formidable pianist and blogger practicing a powerful etude in his Manhattan apartment.
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Jeremy Denk sees his apartment as his own "piano boot camp." Except for books, a coffee pot and a laptop, there's not much to do there but practice. We eavesdropped as he worked on complex etudes.
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A building demolition inadvertently helps pianist Jonathan Biss discover the perfect practicing solution. Moving the piano out of his apartment away from the commotion allows him concentration.
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New York Polyphony sings ancient music built for big spaces. But cathedrals aren't easy to come by for every practice session. That's when the group falls back on a modest-sized living room.
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A UK-based group performs Brian Eno's NASA-inspired electronic music on conventional instruments.
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Under confusing carry-on rules, a cherished instrument is injured on an overseas flight.
