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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From NPR's annual list of reading recommendations, Books We Love, we hear four suggestions of history books from 2021.
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A new album, marking the Russian composer's 90th birthday, is packed with probing works for huge symphonic forces. -
The Belgian polymath is back with a song that celebrates the hard-working people – from fishermen to restaurant staff – who keep our economies afloat.
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The members of Recap, four young women of color from New Jersey, have built a mission of gender equity into their striking debut album. -
Known primarily for his southern-flavored operas, Floyd helped create an American opera vernacular. His 1955 hit Susannah won the New York Music Critics Circle Award and helped launch his career. -
An explicit, potent musical manifesto, demanding to repossess what colonization has stolen from Tanya Tagaq's culture.
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On his new album, Mozart & Contemporaries, the deep-thinking pianist from Iceland aims to debunk the image of Amadeus as the giggling savant by contrasting his music with that of his peers. -
A visionary who died young and alone in 1990, Eastman is making a slow but richly deserved comeback thanks to a curious younger generation. A new interpretation of his 1974 work Femenine is out now. -
Classical music fans are mourning the loss of the celebrated mezzo-soprano, known for her versatility and the warmth of her voice. She died at her home in Austria on April 24 at age 93. -
The young, late-comer to opera is turning heads in the classical world with a powerful voice that can rocket over huge orchestras or pare down to a silvery thread. -
The gifted conductor who had wielded immense influence in the classical music world, was publicly accused by nine men of sexual abuse. He died March 9 at age 77 of natural causes. -
NPR's resident classical music specialist Tom Huizenga previews two of the albums he's looking forward to spending time with in 2021.
