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 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 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 in Greenwich Village, placed tenor Lawrence Brownlee and pianist Jason Moran at a historic church in Harlem, and invited composer Philip Glass to to discuss music with Devonté Hynes (aka Blood Orange).
He has also written and produced , such as , 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 trailblazing singer, who broke the color barrier at the Metropolitan Opera in 1955, is remembered in a deluxe new release of albums and images. -
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. -
The revered Cuban composer's winning piece was inspired by the life and struggles of Susan B. Anthony and her own poor mother and grandmother in Cuba. -
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. -
NPR's resident classical music specialist Tom Huizenga previews two of the albums he's looking forward to spending time with in 2021. -
NPR Music's classical editor traces the high points of a year spent listening to new albums that offered comfort and confrontation in counterpoint with the relentless world outside the headphones. -
The celebrated soprano died suddenly a year ago, leaving her fans, including one NPR producer, in grief, but with many fond memories. -
When young composers explore old musical formulas, exciting things can happen. Mass for the Endangered is a contemporary twist on an ancient tradition. -
Broadcast nationwide in 1934 and praised by listeners and critics alike, a masterful symphony soon fell silent. A new recording hopes to help revive an American treasure.
