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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.

  • From the soaring voice of a young soprano on the rise to the turbulent sounds of the Berlin Philharmonic in full cry, NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz spin new classical recordings from young musicians and composers.
  • Nearly every classical pianist loves Chopin. But pianists from Poland have a special bond with the music of their countryman. NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz spin great Chopin recordings by Polish pianists from 1917 up to today.
  • From the swirling sounds of 18th-century Ottoman court music to hypnotic, modern chants from Kiev, NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz spin an extra-wide assortment of new classical music.
  • From Osvaldo Golijov's cross-cultural musical fiesta to the chestnut-colored voice of Rolando Villazon, NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and All Things Considered host Guy Raz spin a few of the most notable classical recordings of the past ten years.
  • From sensuous-sounding Chopin to a radical remix of Terry Riley's IN C, NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and All Things Considered host Guy Raz spin a wide assortment of new classical CDs.
  • Inspired by the emotionally charged and virtuosic music of the Baroque era, the adventurous mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli's new CD is devoted to the dazzling music associated with the age of the castrati.
  • April 14 marks the 250th anniversary of the composer's death. In honor of the occasion, two preeminent Handel musicians explain why the music remains as popular as ever with both performers and audiences.
  • NPR's Tom Huizenga takes Scott Simon on a guided tour of a fascinating new set of opera CDs, documenting singers and their recordings from 1898 to 2007. Along the way, hear opera great Enrico Caruso in his first recording session and the penatrating sound of dramatic soprano Eva Turner.
  • For her new recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, Mutter traveled to the composer's old stomping ground in Leipzig, Germany, to the site where the concerto had its premiere in 1845.
  • The Oslo-based trio of vocalists introduces a Norwegian Christmas tune, as well as a few traditions from their homeland, in NPR's Studio 4A. The group's latest recording has just been nominated for a Grammy Award.