Ask Wynton Marsalis to name his favorite holiday song and he might tell you, “The Christmas Song” by Mel Torme. Then he’ll likely explain it’s personal. When Marsalis first moved to New York, he played in a show with Torme. He was 18 years-old. “The contractor thought I was...

For violinist Benjamin Beilman, the music of Johannes Brahms has timeless appeal. Striking what he considers a “perfect balance” between the personal and the objective, works like the German Romantic composer’s Violin Concerto in D major, op. 77, still have the power to...

“Whatever you want to happen in your life, help make it happen for somebody else…and it will happen for you.” Columbia native, Kevin Felder, started writing songs as a middle-schooler. Today, his music can be heard internationally. Through the ministry of Christian rap, Big...

Charleston’s Fud Livingston, 'Jazz Age' arranger, composer, and musician, made memorable music. (Originally broadcast 05/18/18) - Joseph Anthony “Fud” Livingston, born in Charleston, SC, in 1906, was an American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, arranger, and composer who...

Pianist Gene Harris (1933 – 2000) was an integral part of the well-known group The Three Sounds trio, with bassist Andy Simpkins and drummer Bill Dowdy. After a brief hiatus in the 1970s, he teamed up with bassist Ray Brown to form a new group and also made his way as a...

August 21 will bring the first concert in five years to Columbia’s Williams-Brice Stadium when Beyoncé and Jay-Z make a stop on their On the Run II Tour . For Columbia local and Beyoncé superfan Merrell Johnson, this is an especially big event. “I’ve been a fan of hers...

This past spring, the Charleston Symphony Orchestra performed a concert that was accompanied by a very special, unique, and OLD violin. In fact, this violin is over 300 years old and it one of the world's most celebrated instruments. South Carolina Public Radio’s Bradley...

Working with jazz legends like John Coltrane, Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk, and numerous others has given double bassist Reggie Workman more than a little perspective on music-making. On Monday, June 4th, the eighty-year-old exponent of hard bop and avant-garde jazz shared...

John Kennedy talks with Jeanette Guinn about the Spoleto Festival USA Orchestra, and about the U.S. Pemiere of the opera, Tree of Codes . Australian composer Liza Lim dissolves boundaries to create holes in the world—perforations in which audience members might encounter...

Lidiya Yankovskaya is the music director of Chicago's Opera Lyric Theater. At Spoleto Festival USA she is conducting the U.S. premiere and Spoleto production of Donizetti's Pia de Tolomei . She talks with Jeanette Guinn about the opera, its production, and about learning...

Roy Haynes is one of the greatest living jazz drummers of a generation, with a career spanning seven decades. In 2016 he joined Jon Batiste and Stay Human on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, performing at age 91. He was McPartland’s guest for this 1996 Piano Jazz session...

The Southern Sound Series is an annual event hosted by the Culture and Heritage Museums at McCelvey Center's Lowry Family Theatre in York, South Carolina. The musical acts this year included Nikki Lane, The Steel Wheels, Mark O’Connor Band, and Rhiannon Giddens. While each...

Coordinated playing is essential for the members of an internationally-recognized string quartet... coordinated choreography, not so much. Unless that quartet is taking on Mark Applebaum’s Darmstadt Kindergarten . Watch JACK peform Mark Applebaum's Darmstadt Kindergarten...

From playing double bass, to teaching historic performance at Julliard, to writing poetry and works of music, contemporary American composer Doug Balliett stays busy. As composer-in-residence for the chamber music series of the forty-second Spoleto Festival USA, Doug is not...

This week Piano Jazz remembers Barbara Cook (1927 – August 8, 2017), the Tony and Grammy Award-winning lyric soprano who was a favorite of audiences around the world. She was a star on Broadway as an ingénue and became a staple of the New York cabaret scene in the later...