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Celebrate the 292nd birthday of Franz Joseph Haydn by hearing the Kansas City Symphony perform three of the prolific composer's works. We'll also hear Nikolai Rimsky-Korsokov's rousing "Russian Easter Festival Overture" and the first of Sergei Rachmaninoff's four genre-defining piano concertos.

This week we begin a celebration of May birthdays and May performances. We'll hear music by Isaac Albéniz, Malcolm Forsyth and Franz Schubert in performances by the Kansas City Symphony led by music director Michael Stern and guest conductors Pinchas Zukerman and Carlos Miguel Prieto. We'll also hear the Kansas City Symphony Chorus in a performance prepared by director Charles Bruffy.

This week, co-hosts Michael Stern and Dan Margolies celebrate the birthday of the great French composer Maurice Ravel with works from throughout his career. The Kansas City Symphony's next Music Director, Matthias Pintscher, will lead the orchestra in two works, plus we'll hear Leon Fleisher in a performance of the "Left Hand Concerto," alongside the crowd-pleasing Bolero and the Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé.

While many composers wrote multiple concertos for violin and piano, Samuel Barber wrote just one for each instrument. This week, in honor of the American composer's birthday, we'll hear those two concertos featuring violinist Philippe Quint and pianist Alessio Bax. Also, we'll hear "Scheherazade," the orchestral warhorse by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsokov, who was also born in the month of March.

Classical KC speaks with the director of The Kansas City Youth Percussion Ensemble, Kevin Clarke, plus two talented young members of the group. We'll hear performances of eclectic music that explores the large world of percussive sound.

On this special Kansas City Local Feature, we'll hear music to honor mothers and mother figures chosen by Classical KC listeners. Enjoy some lovely music and stories dedicated to your moms.

Classical KC speaks with composer Ian Coleman and poet Ruth Williams about collaboration, overcoming artistic challenges, and the similarities between writing poetry and composing music. We'll also hear a variety of music composed by Coleman.

In the final program of this profile, Kertész leads music of Vaughan Williams, Respighi, and Bartok. In music ranging from the sacred to the profane, he demonstrates uncanny ability to draw from each genre characteristic and compelling performances.

Beethoven’s 250th birthday occurs days before this show airs, so we devote the entire program to his music. We open with his stirring and noble “Consecration of the House” overture and the main course of our Beethoven buffet is his magnificent Septet in E-flat, Op. 20 in a classic recording by the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. Both recordings show Beethoven at his best, as well as at his most bombastic and most intimate.

Guest host Brian Ellison speaks with composer Mason Bates and Kansas City Symphony Associate Conductor Gonzalo Farias about performing Mason's multimedia depiction of the orchestra, "Philharmonia Fantastique." We'll also learn about their early music influences and how orchestras are embracing 21st-century technology.