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.
-
The pioneering Japanese-American conductor who led the Boston Symphony Orchestra for nearly decades died Tuesday. -
To mark Philip Glass' 87th birthday, the astute pianist Timo Andres stops by to play a contrasting pair of the composer's popular etudes.
-
The band's unique sound, driven by its peculiar blend of trumpet, winds and strings, seems like a compelling soundtrack for an age when music genres are becoming increasingly arbitrary. -
NPR staffers recommend non-fiction reads from our Books We Love list: "On Minimalism," "Anansi's Gold," "Asian-Americans in an Anti-Black World," and "The Wager."
-
Discover a broad spectrum of this year's most compelling classical music, from symphonic hell rides and soaring voices to searing string quartets, cathartic choirs and one amazing comeback. -
One hundred years after her birth, Maria Callas still commands attention in the world of opera, which she forever altered with her singular, searing performances. -
Themes emerge quickly when you dig into the nominations for the 66th Grammy Awards. The major categories are dominated by women and seemingly up for grabs; elsewhere, progress is not always so clear. -
A new album of music by the 88-year-old Estonian mystic seems to put an arm around you and whisper, "In troubled times, music can help." -
In one of its very final performances ever, the durable and beloved string quartet says farewell with music by Beethoven, Walker and Ravel.
-
In our very first tap dancing Tiny Desk, the artists created an experience so unexpectedly fresh and suffused with joy, it moved some to tears and others to cheer for more.
