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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In Jim White's drumming, there's a restless wonder. On this 8 Tracks, we lead off with a sprawling rocker by his band Dirty Three, but also feature new music by Chappell Roan and Amber Mark. -
Music can shift, uplift or even subvert a scene. This week on 8 Tracks, we play music supervisor, imagining songs by Kamasi Washington and Carin León on the big screen. -
ÁTTA, the band's first album in 10 years, sports an orchestra of strings, high-flying vocalism and its signature bittersweet melodies. -
When the words in a song hit you in just the right way, they can stay with you. We're asking the folks at NPR Music: What lyrics did you hear in 2022 that you just couldn't shake? -
Hear what's been called "America's most astonishing choir" sing brand new music by Shara Nova that looks at how we handle difficult emotions.
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Violin and cello are sparkling stand-ins for the Andean charango in an evocative serenade by Gabriela Lena Frank.
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On March 19, 1968, an amateur recording engineer set up his gear at a coffeehouse in Ottawa. He taped two sets by Joni Mitchell. That recording engineer was none other than Jimi Hendrix,
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Alone amidst the mist and moss near her new home on Ireland's western coast, Savage performs three songs that cohere around the theme of emerging from the darkness of a toxic relationship.
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Plagues and epidemics are ages-old phenomena. They've triggered both fear and inspiration. NPR's Tom Huizenga surveys musical responses from composers over the centuries. -
Known early on for his avant-garde works, the composer's challenging music nevertheless found fans far beyond traditional classical music circles.
