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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The 12th century abbess, scientist and composer inspires new interpretations of her music, and new works, on an album spotlighting soprano Barbara Hannigan. -
The classical guitarist offers a mesmerizing East meets West collision, teaming up with a family of Indian musicians who play the sarod, a darker-toned cousin of the sitar. -
As one of the most-performed living composers, the Pulitzer winner insists that her music communicate to everyone — from farmers to children to the classical music intelligentsia. -
From plumbing pipes and rice bowls to vibraphones and one big bass drum, Sandbox Percussion makes mesmerizing music that you have to see to believe. -
The 88-year-old composer, who talks as fast as the interlocking phrases of his music, looks back on crucial moments in a career that moved minimalism into the mainstream. -
On his new album, the British keyboardist offers both engaging and entertaining contemporary works for the misunderstood instrument. -
Discover a wide range of this year's most compelling classical music, from symphonic thrill rides and soaring voices to delicate baroque suites, ambient adventures and one groove-laden masterwork. -
Riley’s pioneering piece, which premiered 60 years ago, leaves many decisions up to the performers. It helped launch the movement known as minimalism, but In C itself has also survived and changed. -
To mark the 150th anniversary of the maverick American composer’s birth, pianist Jeremy Denk releases an Ives tribute album that educates, delights and confounds. -
At last, the ambitious composer finds herself in the spotlight, with a Carnegie Hall residency and a sparkling new album featuring Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.