August 2015 Listings for From the Top

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This month will feature a program from Snow Pond Center for the Arts where From the Top met an amazing young oboist. (8/16)

8/2       From Seattle, Washington, we’ll hear a local teenage violinist performing the music of Ernest Bloch, teenagers from Chicago perform a fun work for sax quartet, and we'll enjoy the broadcast premiere of a composition written by an 18-year-old from New York City – an intriguing piece titled Tropholingua, which means “language of plants.”

8/9       From Norfolk, Virginia, we’ll feature the violin-cello duo of Brendon and Sterling Elliot, a spirited performance of Mozart’s Sonata No. 12 by 11-year-old pianist Kyle Hu, and we’ll meet 15-year-old violinist Alissa Mori, who recently landed a guest role in the new NBC series “Believe.”

8/16      From the Snow Pond Center for the Arts in Sidney, Maine, we’ll feature one of the strongest teenage oboists we’ve encountered in the past few years performing a gorgeous Élégie by Francis Poulenc; a 14-year-old violinist performs Vieuxtemp's virtuosic showpiece, the Yankee Doodle Variations; and we meet a harpist who shares some wonderful stories about growing up studying music on rugged and rural Mount Desert Island, Maine.

8/23      From The Performing Arts Center at Purchase College, where the National Youth Orchestra of the USA has been in residence for two weeks, preparing for their national tour. You'll hear 120 of America's best and brightest young musicians that have been brought together by the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall performing works by Bernstein and Gershwin as well as a premiering a new piece by Samuel Adams, all under the baton of conductor David Robertson. We’ll also hear a performance by the NYO-USA Piano Quartet, which includes Rochester violist Martine Thomas.

8/30      From the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, each young performer discusses a connection between the music they’re performing and a work of visual art in the museum’s collection. We hear the award-winning string quartet Quartet Fuoco from Chicago perform the music of Bartok, and 18-year-old Rujia Teng from Maryland performs an epic piece on the traditional Chinese instrument, the guzheng.