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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Absent from the recording studio for more than a decade, the restless musician has commissioned six composers for his new album. -
Antonin Dvorak's "New World Symphony" is an anthem to American roots. It was written by a foreigner and required white classical musicians to respect Black spirituals and Native American music.
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ÁTTA, the band's first album in 10 years, sports an orchestra of strings, high-flying vocalism and its signature bittersweet melodies. -
Saariaho, who battled a male-dominated educational system in her native Finland, forged a strong and singular voice in contemporary music. -
A new collection of recordings finally freed from the vaults offers a chance to hear one of opera's greatest artists sing Wagner, Strauss, Berlioz and more. -
On her new album, Dark with Excessive Bright, the vibrant, young composer coaxes unusual sounds from a symphony orchestra. -
The velvet-voiced soprano with a career on the rise chooses her projects, and the music on her debut solo album, with consummate intention. -
As the new concert season gets underway, composers and orchestra administrators say they are feeling a shift in whose music gets heard. -
The Scottish guitarist defies expectations, ditching his traditional nylon-strung instrument for a Fender Stratocaster to play a startling range of music – from Meredith Monk to Chick Corea. -
Georgetown University owes its survival to slavery. A new album by Carlos Simon, an assistant professor at the school, unflinchingly confronts that legacy.
