Today’s Beautiful Music features a captivating performance by harpist Kathrin Butterfly of BAROQUE FLAMENCO by Grammy-nominated American harpist, composer, and educator Deborah Henson-Conant. I especially love the up-close camera work that allows you to see her technique playing the instrument.

When I think of the month of May, I think of FLOWERS!! So today’s Beautiful Music is the beloved FLOWER DUET from Leo Delibes’ opera LAKME. This live concert recording was made at the Philharmonie de Paris in March 2023. It features two of today’s hottest opera stars: Nadine Sierra & Pretty Yende.

Pianist Olga Scheps provides today’s Beautiful Music. She is playing MAY, one of the 12 character pieces for solo piano from Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s THE SEASONS op.37a. Tchaikovsky was commissioned in 1875 to write the collection. This live performance took place in April 2016 at Stadthalle Germering in Germany.

In honor of Memorial Day, today’s Beautiful Music is a special presentation. It’s a performance of ARLINGTON SONS, a composition by Scott Eyerly that was commissioned by acclaimed bass-baritone David Pittsinger. (full disclosure — David and I were undergraduate music department classmates at The University of Connecticut.) His father, Richard Pittsinger, had been a Guard

FIGURE HUMAINE is a cantata by Francis Poulenc for an unaccompanied double mixed choir of 12 voices. He composed it in 1943, when France was under Nazi occupation, setting texts from Paul Éluard’s 1942 anti-war poems, Poésie et vérité. Today’s Beautiful Music is a May 2020 performance in Oslo, Norway of FIGURE HUMAINE by The Norwegian

Today’s Beautiful Music is a lively and varied concert called SOUNDS FROM SANTA: A CELEBRATION OF WOMEN COMPOSERS. The Gala Concert took place at Santa Sabina College in Sydney, Austrailia. In their program, the talented young musicians performed 14 world premières of original compositions by current students, former students and staff.

Bandoneon is an instrument most closely associated with Argentina and tango music. Today’s Beautiful Music is a new take on bandoneon and a fresh take on Bach! The Avalos Solera Duo (featuring Rodrigo Avalos and Heyni Solera) performs a program of music by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Croatian composer Dora Pejačević (1885-1923) began her musical career playing piano and violin, sometimes even performing her own compositions. Today’s Beautiful Music is one of Dora Pejačević’s 58 known compositions — the Symphony in f# Op. 41, composed in 1918 by the largely self-taught musician. Use the link below to learn more about her life