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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On Oct. 19, 1814, an Austrian teenager named Franz Schubert wrote "Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel," a boldly innovative song that remains an inspiration for singers and songwriters. -
The winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for music is both an unforgettable seascape and an urgent call to action. Hear the Alaskan composer and environmentalist's sweeping symphonic work. -
In music from Giuseppe Verdi to Jennifer Higdon, celebrate the sound of the venturesome Atlanta Symphony Orchestra while it's silenced by a bitter labor dispute. -
Three centuries ago, Domenico Scarlatti churned out 555 keyboard sonatas. Today, pianists, harpsichordists and even accordionists still can't get enough. Hear a clutch of new recordings. -
Composer Robert Kyr frequently travels to northern New Mexico, where he writes rapturous music inspired by light, stone, stillness and prayer. -
One hundred years after the start of World War I, hear a range of pop and classical music from artists of the era. Some music reflects the war's violence, some gives solace. -
Watch the celebrated pianist play Bach's Two-part Inventions, which can zing with the speed of a sewing machine, or unfold slowly like a gentle aria.
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The Estonian composer's contemplative yet powerful music has found popularity beyond the borders of classical music. He's making a rare appearance in the U.S. to attend a festival of his music. -
In Elizabethan England, it was hip to have the blues. Watch the British countertenor mine the art of John Dowland's melancholy songs. He's joined by Thomas Dunford, "the Eric Clapton of the lute."
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After nearly 30 years, 20 albums and countless concerts, the acclaimed vocal ensemble has announced the 2015-16 season will be its last. Hear a preview of the group's forthcoming album love fail.
