Podcast · Music

Composers Datebook

by American Public Media · English · Music

Composers Datebook™ is a daily two-minute program designed to inform, engage, and entertain listeners with timely information about composers of the past and present. Each program notes significant or intriguing musical events involving composers of the past and present, with appropriate and accessi

New episodes: Daily
Typical length: 2 min
Latest: 12 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

12 Oct 2026 · 2 minNew

Zwilich celebrates

Synopsis As far as housewarming gifts go, a nice bottle of champagne is common, or maybe a bouquet of flowers. But if you’re a composer, and the occasion is the ceremonial opening performance at a new concert hall, you write a celebratory piece of music. On today’s date in 1984, for the inaugural concert of the Indianapolis Symphony’s new home, the Circle Theater, American composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich wrote an orchestral work titled, appropriately enough, Celebration . “In writing this work, I was motivated by three complementary goals. First, I wanted to celebrate a joyous and historic…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

11 Oct 2026 · 2 minNew
Prokofiev's Sixth and Seventh
Synopsis By a coincidence, the last two symphonies of Soviet composer Sergei Prokofiev premiered on today’s date: his Symphony No. 6 premiered in Leningrad in 1947, and his final, Symphony No. 7, in Moscow, in 1952. The Symphony No. 6 is tragic in tone, and Prokofiev confided that it was about the physical and emotional wounds suffered by his countrymen during World War II. It was premiered at the opening concert of the Leningrad Philharmonic’s 1947 season and was applauded warmly by both audiences and the official Soviet critics. But early in 1948, he somehow ran afoul of the Central…
10 Oct 2026 · 2 min
The school of Monk
Synopsis American jazz composer and pianist Thelonious Sphere Monk was born on today’s date in 1917. Largely self-taught, he began playing piano at 6. At 17, he dropped out of New York’s esteemed Stuyvesant High School for gifted students to serve as organist for a touring evangelist. In his 20s, he became the house pianist at Minton’s, a Manhattan jazz nightclub. His original compositions, marked by dissonances and angular twists of melody, became jazz standards. They also had great titles: ‘ Round Midnight ; Straight, No Chaser ; Ruby, My Dear ; and Well, You Needn’t . He made the cover of…
9 Oct 2026 · 2 min
Vivaldi’s 'Juditha Triumphans'
Synopsis On today’s date in 2001, the release of a CD of Vivaldi’s oratorio Juditha Triumphans launched an ambitious project to record nearly 450 works of the famous Italian Baroque composer that exist as manuscript scores in the Biblioteca Nazionale in Turin, Italy. It’s the largest collection of manuscript scores by any 18th-century composer in existence and includes many Vivaldi works unperformed since his lifetime. Susan Orlando, the director of the recording project, explained how that came to be: “When Vivaldi died in Vienna in 1741, he had debts, so the authorities immediately sealed…
8 Oct 2026 · 2 min
Ligeti's 'out there' Violin Concerto
Synopsis On today’s date in 1992, one of the strangest — and some would say most strikingly original — violin concertos of the late 20th century had its premiere performance in Cologne, Germany. It was written by Transylvanian-born Hungarian composer György Ligeti. He became famous in the west when some of his music appeared in the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey . Kubrick used his music to evoke the eerie and empty vastness of outer space. And, in fact, Ligeti was fascinated by the sounds traditional orchestral instruments make when pressed to the extreme limits of their…
7 Oct 2026 · 2 min
Jake Heggie's opera 'Dead Man Walking'
Synopsis As the 20th century drew to its close, some who followed the development of opera were struck by the number of new American operas on American themes. On today’s date in 2000, one of these new operas debuted in San Francisco. Dead Man Walking , an opera in two acts, was based on a 1993 book by Sister Helen Prejean, a book also made into a successful movie. The libretto for the operatic version of Sister Prejean’s book was crafted by Terrance McNally and set to music by American composer Jake Heggie. Now, an opera based on eyewitness accounts of American prisoners on death row might…
6 Oct 2026 · 2 min
Music for the movies
Synopsis On today’s date in 1927, the landmark film The Jazz Singer received its premiere showing at the Warner Theater in New York. The Jazz Singer starred Al Jolson and is usually credited with being the first “talkie” — the first motion picture to successfully incorporate prerecorded music and spoken dialogue. Both the music and dialogue were recorded using the Vitaphone process, essentially a set of disc recordings synchronized for playback with the film’s projector. The previous year, the New York Philharmonic had participated in the first Vitaphone projects, recording Wagner’s…
5 Oct 2026 · 2 min
Grove and Sullivan 'discover' Schubert
Synopsis On today’s date in 1867, two eminent British Victorians arrived in Vienna in search of Franz Schubert. Now, Schubert had been dead for 39 years, as the two Brits were quite aware. George Grove, 47, was England’s finest musicologist, and Arthur Sullivan, 25, one of the country’s most promising young composers. Grove believed there might be forgotten manuscripts in the possession of the late composer’s relatives, so the pair met with Schubert’s nephew, Herr Doktor Schneider, who said he did have some pieces by Uncle Franz that no one had played for more than 40 years. If the two…
4 Oct 2026 · 2 min
Copland's 'Appalachian Spring' Suite
Synopsis On today’s date in 1945, Artur Rodzinski conducted the New York Philharmonic in the premiere performance of an orchestral suite arranged from Aaron Copland’s ballet score Appalachian Spring . For the ballet’s 1944 premiere at the Library of Congress, Copland called for a chamber orchestra of 13 players, but for most music lovers, it’s as a work for a larger symphony orchestra that Appalachian Spring is most often remembered. He said he had conducted all of his own works but knew his Appalachian Spring best of all. He also had some specific advice for other conductors of his score.…
3 Oct 2026 · 2 min
The Dream of Gerontius
Synopsis Despite a disastrous premiere in Birmingham on today’s date in 1900, Edward Elgar’s oratorio The Dream of Gerontius has become one of his best-loved and most-frequently performed works in the U.K., where, in 2015, Classic FM offered a guide to what it called the work’s “most epic choral stupendousness.” Here’s Classic FM’s summary of its story: “The piece follows an ‘everyman’ character (the word ‘Gerontius’ comes from the Greek for ‘old man’) as he faces death, meets his guardian angel and goes before his God before being taken to Purgatory with the promise of everlasting glory.”…
2 Oct 2026 · 2 min
Steve Heitzeg's 'Nobel Symphony'
Synopsis In 2001, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize, Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, commissioned American composer Steve Heitzeg to write a Nobel Symphony . In 1866, the Swedish engineer and scientist Alfred Nobel had invented dynamite. His patent helped him amass a great fortune, but, troubled by the destructive power and potential misuse of his invention, Nobel arranged that his estate would award annual prizes to those who made significant contributions to world peace. For his Nobel Symphony , Heitzeg chose to set quotes from a variety of Nobel…
1 Oct 2026 · 2 min
Gabriela Lena Frank's 'Hilos'
Synopsis On today’s date in 2010, at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music in Nashville, the ALIAS ensemble gave the premiere performance of a new chamber work by American composer Gabriela Lena Frank. It was titled Hilos — the Spanish word for “threads” — and scored for piano, violin, cello and clarinet. Now, it’s not unusual for composers to tap their particular cultural background for inspiration, but she has a pretty wide variety of options in that regard: Her father is an American of Lithuanian Jewish heritage and her mother is Peruvian of Chinese descent. They met when her…
30 Sep 2026 · 2 min
A Vaughan Williams premiere in Liverpool
Synopsis Even during the bombing of London by the German Air Force, the London Blitz of World War Two, the BBC Proms Concerts continued. True, in 1941 a German incendiary bomb did destroy the long-time home of the Proms, Queen’s Hall on Langham Place, but, not to be deterred, the Proms simply moved to the Royal Albert Hall in South Kensington. Wartime Proms programs included this printed notice: “In the event of an Air Raid Warning the audience will be informed immediately, so that those who wish to take shelter either in the building or in public shelters outside, may do so, The concert…
29 Sep 2026 · 2 min
Tan Dun at the movies (and in the concert hall)
Synopsis On today’s date in 2000, a new cello concerto received its premiere performance at the Barbican Center in London. Billed as the Crouching Tiger Concerto , this score was by Chinese composer Tan Dun, and was derived from his film score for Ang Lee’s martial arts film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon . That score featured a prominent cello part, tailor-made for cellist Yo-Yo Ma, as well as a variety of traditional Chinese instruments and a percussion battery that included a North African frame drum. The haunting score matched the film so effectively that it was nominated for — and won…
28 Sep 2026 · 2 min
Herrmann and Daugherty look to the skies
Synopsis On today’s date in 1951, the classic sci-fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still was playing in theaters across America. The film’s opening sequence depicted a UFO hovering over Washington, D.C. Back then, flying saucer sightings were increasingly common, perhaps a result of mass hysteria spawned by cold war tensions and the existential threat posed by the atomic bomb. Or maybe we were being visited by other planets? In any case, the movie made a big impression at the time, and countless kids — and probably a few adults as well — memorized the magic words “Gort: Klaatu barada nikto”…
27 Sep 2026 · 2 min
Carter's Cello Concerto
Synopsis In September 2001, American composer Elliott Carter was just a few months shy of his 93rd birthday, but still busy composing new works both large and small. On today’s date that year, his Cello Concerto received its premiere in Chicago with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Daniel Barenboim conducting the Chicago Symphony. Carter’s music is technically challenging for performers, and its complexity can make it equally challenging for audiences, especially at first hearing. Despite all that, his comments on his music were usually quite straightforward: “In this score I have tried to find…
26 Sep 2026 · 2 min
Dawson's 'Negro Folk Symphony'
Synopsis Today’s date in 1899 marks the birthday of famous African-American composer, choir director and teacher, William L. Dawson, in Anniston, Alabama. After musical studies in Kansas City and Chicago, from 1931 to 1956 Dawson taught at the Tuskegee Institute, where he developed the Institute’s Choir into an internationally-renowned ensemble. His arrangements of African-American spirituals, which he preferred to call folksongs, are justly famous, but in 1934 he produced his masterwork, a Negro Folk Symphony , modeled on Dvorak’s New World Symphony, but exhibiting his own distinctive…
25 Sep 2026 · 2 min
An Italian western (for English horn)
Synopsis “Spaghetti western” is a nickname given to a genre of Italian films from the 1960s, most famously directed by Sergio Leone, and often starring Clint Eastwood as the taciturn, gun-toting anti-hero. Spaghetti Western also is the title of a concerto for English horn written by American composer Michael Daugherty that received its premiere performance on today’s date in 1998 at a Pittsburgh Symphony concert conducted by Mariss Jansons. “Just as Leone’s films redefined the Western genre from an Italian perspective, I redefine the European concerto … within an American context. In my…
24 Sep 2026 · 2 min
Adolphus Hailstork's 'Amazing Grace'
Synopsis On today’s date in 1875, one of the greatest musical match-makers of all time died in Spartanburg, South Carolina. His name was William Walker, an American Baptist shape-note-singing master who published several collections of traditional shape note tunes. “Shape note” refers to a simple musical notation designed for communal singing. In his 1835 collection, Southern Harmony , Walker married a shape-note tune known as “New Britain” to the text of “Amazing Grace,” a hymn written by Anglican clergyman and abolitionist, John Newton. Walker’s collection was a bestseller in the 19th…
23 Sep 2026 · 2 min
Mackey's 'Stumble to Grace'
Synopsis On today’s date in 2011, the Saint Louis Symphony under David Robertson premiered a new piano concerto by American composer Steven Mackey. The soloist was Orli Shaham, Robertson’s wife, to whom the new work was dedicated. The new concerto had an odd title: Stumble to Grace , which Mackey explained: “There is a narrative running through the piece … the piano is all thumbs … as it stumbles in its first entrance, playing naïve and awkward plinks and plunks. By [the end], the piano plays sophisticated, virtuosic and, at times, graceful contrapuntal music — a fugue, in fact … the…
22 Sep 2026 · 2 min
Garcia's Requiem
Synopsis In the 1970s, the Afro-American Music Opportunities Association collaborated with Columbia Records to create an audio anthology of works by underrepresented Afro-American composers. Dubbed The Black Composer Series , this became a famous series of LPs devoted to recent works by then-contemporary composers as well as notable works from the 18th and 19th centuries. One of the earliest composers represented in Columbia’s Black Composer Series was José Maurício Nunes Garcia, who was born in Brazil on today’s date in 1767. His grandparents had been African slaves, but his parents were…
21 Sep 2026 · 2 min
Stravinsky goes home
Synopsis On today’s date in 1962, Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky returned to his homeland for the first time in nearly half a century. When he left in 1914, Czar Nicholas was still on the throne. By 1962, a lot had changed. For starters, his music had been severely criticized in the Soviet Union. Tikhon Khrennikov, first secretary of the Soviet Composers’ Union, branded Stravinsky “the apostle of reactionary forces in bourgeois music.” Dimtri Shostakovich had condemned “the unwholesome influence of Stravinsky” and his “complete divorce from the true demands of our time.” Whether…
20 Sep 2026 · 2 min
Captain Jinks
Synopsis On today’s date in 1975, the Kansas City Lyric Theater opened its 18th season with the world premiere of a new opera by Jack Beeson, Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines . As if to prove that everything is “up-to-date” in Kansas City, even before this world premiere, this Missouri company could boast a long tradition of staging contemporary operas by American composers. Captain Jinks was the sixth of some 10 operas composed by Jack Beeson, who was born in Muncie, Indiana, in 1921. He blames the radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera for his catching the opera bug. “When I was…
19 Sep 2026 · 2 min
Vaughan Williams at Westminster
Synopsis On today’s date in 1958, just nine days after his death, a funeral service was held for British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams at Westminster Abbey, where his ashes were laid to rest. Now, many famous people are buried at Westminster Abbey, but an actual funeral service there, especially for someone not of the royal family, is pretty rare. In fact, Vaughan Williams was the first commoner to be buried there for almost 300 years. The previous such event had been for the 17th English composer and sometime organist of the Abbey, Henry Purcell — whose grave, like Vaughan Williams, is in…
18 Sep 2026 · 2 min
Elgar's Fifth
Synopsis On today’s date in 1930, in Kingsway Hall in London, British composer Edward Elgar conducted the first performance of his Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5, the last in this popular series. Two of the previous marches had been dedicated to organist friends of the composer, and so when organist Percy Hull asked Elgar for a new work for the 1930 Hereford Festival, the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 5 is dedicated to him. In 1930, Elgar was 73 and liked to go for automobile rides in the country. Hull had given him some driving lessons, and, appropriately enough, he got the idea for…
17 Sep 2026 · 2 min
Sierra's 'La Salsa'
Synopsis The Milwaukee Symphony was one of the first American orchestras to offer recordings of their live performances as digital downloads — and along with Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner, occasionally offered more contemporary fare, as well. For example, on today’s date in 2005, Andreas Delfs led the Milwaukee Symphony in the world premiere performance of an orchestral work they had commissioned from Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra, and they offered it as a download. Sierra’s Sinfonia No. 3, La Salsa , turned to the dance music of Cuba, the Dominican Republic and his native Puerto…
16 Sep 2026 · 2 min
Shostakovich on Broadway?
Synopsis On today’s date in 1925, Vincent Youman’s musical No, No Nanette opened on Broadway after a trial run in Detroit and additional preview stagings in Chicago and London. Tunes from No, No Nanette even reached the Soviet Union, although occasionally something was lost in the translation. For example, in Russia, the musical’s popular foxtrot, Tea for Two , was called the Tahiti Trot . Late in 1927, on a dare from conductor Nikolai Malko, 21-year old Soviet composer Dimtri Shostakovich orchestrated this tune in just one hour. Malko was so pleased that he performed the orchestration the…
15 Sep 2026 · 2 min
Gisela Hernández
Synopsis Today’s date in 1912 marked the birthday of Cuban composer, choral director, and educator Gisela Hernández. She began her musical studies at the Santa Cecilia School in her hometown of Cárdenas, and in 1924 moved to Havana, where she finished her studies four years later at the National Conservatory. She won Cuba’s National Composition Award in 1940, and in 1944 continued her studies in the United States at the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore. Returning to Cuba, she began to compose her own works, pursued a career at various educational institutions, and organized and…
14 Sep 2026 · 2 min
Tan Dun and Beethoven – in (and out) of China
Synopsis On this date in 1973, Eugene Ormandy conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in music by Mozart, Brahms and American composer, Roy Harris. The program was nothing out of the ordinary, but the concert took place in Beijing and marked the first time an American orchestra had performed in Communist China. The orchestra was invited to China following the famous visit of President and Mrs. Nixon and secretary of state Henry Kissinger. In the audience for one of these historic concerts was a young student of traditional Chinese music, Tan Dun. When he heard the Philadelphians perform…
13 Sep 2026 · 2 min
Copland counts to 12
Synopsis On today’s date in 1967, Aaron Copland’s final orchestra work, Inscape, was premiered by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Copland said the work’s title, Inscape , was borrowed from 19th-century English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Its compositional technique was borrowed from the serial or 12-tone models of Arnold Schoenberg and the some of the late works of one of his favorite composers, Igor Stravinsky. Bernstein was no great fan of 12-tone music, but he exclaimed following the premiere, “Aaron, it’s amazing how, even when…

About Composers Datebook

Composers Datebook is a English music podcast from American Public Media. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: American Public Media
Language: English
Category: Music
New episodes: Daily
Typical length: 2 min
Latest episode: 12 Oct 2026
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