Musician Lara Downes aims to highlight the work of composers like Harry T. Burleigh, photographed c. 1938. Granger Classical pianist Lara Downes knew she was onto something profound when audiences ...

Explore 25 of the most celebrated composers in history, from medieval pioneers to Romantic masters. Discover their ...

Jessie Montgomery is having a moment. Several moments at once, actually. In the past several years, the 40-year-old composer and violinist has rapidly become a poster child for the shifting classical ...

Classical organist Joy-Leilani Garbutt had just completed a rehearsal one evening last fall when she stopped by the Takoma Beverage Company. A fellow musician who runs the hangout spot thought Garbutt ...

Classical music must be alive and at least reasonably well if it generates vigorous dialogue. That's what happened in a rather big way recently when Anthony Tommasini, chief music critic of The New ...

You’ve heard it all before. Classical music is dead. It’s one of our culture’s most enduring variations on a theme: that classical music is dying, or aging, or rusty or, at the very least, dusty. It’s ...

Hear how Native American composers mix their heritage with techiques passed down from the European classical tradition. A small but growing number of American Indian musicians are embracing classical ...

I crashed an opera rehearsal the other day. A large group of vocalists, young, old, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, all the genders, belted out in long rows surrounding a piano. They were preparing for ...

The American classical music vernacular would never be complete without the catalogs of great composers like William Grant Still, Florence Price, and George Walker. But even so, Black voices have been ...

Composer Missy Mazzoli, whose next opera will be premiered by the Washington National Opera in January. (Marylene Mey) NPR's recent list of the 150 greatest albums by women was inspiring — but where ...