We may be experiencing a heat wave, but the music this week is keeping it cool. Catch Josh Lawrence at the Black Squirrel, Ari Hoenig at Chris', Matmos at Solar Myth and more.

Juneteenth honors Freedom Day, a 19th century landmark for Black Americans across the country. WRTI has prepared special programming in that spirit, featuring music from John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Lionel Loueke and more.

Kevin Day has composed well-received works for orchestra and jazz combo, but nothing has stretched his horizons quite like Lalovavi: An Afrofuturist Opera in Three Acts — his debut opera, which will premiere at the Cincinnati Opera in the summer of 2026. During a recent visit to WRTI, Day talked about this epic work, and played some of its themes at the piano.

Join us on Sunday, June 22 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1 and Monday, June 23 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 as The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert brings you Hélène Grimaud in Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1, alongside Louise Farrenc's First Symphony and Julia Wolfe's 'Pretty,' which the composer calls "a raucous celebration." Yannick Nézet-Séguin is on the podium.

Isabel Hagen stopped by WRTI in April while on a stand-up tour to chat with Alex Ariff about her bohemian upbringing, specific moments from her web series Is a Violist, and how she folds her viola playing into her live act as a stand-up, and more.

Carmen Lundy, esperanza spalding and Sullivan Fortner are among the headliners at the 38th Clifford Brown Jazz Fest. Also this week, in Philly: Nasir Dickerson, Kaisa's Machine and more.

This Father's Day, Sunday Classical spotlights canonical paterfamilias, pieces composed in dedication, and father-child pairings — like cellist Adrian Brendel and his father, pianist Alfred Brendel, playing Beethoven duets.

Listen to our jazz programming on WRTI 90.1 FM all Father's Day weekend to hear dad grooves, filial tributes, and multi-generational jams.

Meet 16-year-old cellist Kealia Grace Smith, a member of the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra, the cellist in Settlement Music School’s Advanced Study Snitzer String Quartet, and a Philadelphia Music Alliance for Youth (PMAY) Artist.

Pianist-composer Amaro Freitas creates music with a vivid sense of place. His native Brazil pulses through his most recent album, Y'Y, which mixes jazz with Afro-Brazilian and indigenous music, and the sounds of the Amazon. Freitas discusses this and more with Josh Jackson, in a deeply searching conversation recorded backstage at New York's Winter Jazzfest earlier this year.