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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A quartet of Icelandic women imagines the clicks and whirs of a giant clock. The blend of strings and electronics mimics the interaction of humans and machines.
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Watch two master musicians combine the sounds of harp and guitar into a singular, evocative instrument in music influenced by Africa and Asia.
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From an intriguing East meets West merger to Vivaldi played with velocity, NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and host Jacki Lyden explore a wide range of new classical releases.
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From the radiant voices of a Latvian choir to a fresh young string quartet and a seasoned symphony, NPR's Tom Huizenga and host Jacki Lyden spin an eclectic mix of new classical releases.
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For centuries composers have written love letters, but not by scratching words on paper. Their language is music. Hear five passionate outpourings by the likes of Mahler, Janáček and Peter Lieberson.
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The flow of good classical Christmas albums seems to have slowed to a trickle. And that's got one holiday listener longing for holiday albums from years past, from Jessye Norman's Christmastide, Duke Ellington's NutcrackerSuite and carols led by Robert Shaw.
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From the versatility of the violin to the virtuosity of a mysterious opera composer, NPR's Tom Huizenga and host Guy Raz spin an eclectic set of the year's best classical recordings.
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The composer, who was born in 1908 and won two Pulitzer Prizes for music that could be challenging and adventurously modern, died in New York.
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NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and host Guy Raz spin an eclectic mix of new classical releases.
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Don't be caught empty-headed when talk turns to the music of the London Games.