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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NPR staffers recommend non-fiction reads from our Books We Love list: "On Minimalism," "Anansi's Gold," "Asian-Americans in an Anti-Black World," and "The Wager."
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Discover a broad spectrum of this year's most compelling classical music, from symphonic hell rides and soaring voices to searing string quartets, cathartic choirs and one amazing comeback. -
One hundred years after her birth, Maria Callas still commands attention in the world of opera, which she forever altered with her singular, searing performances. -
The major categories are dominated by women and seemingly up for grabs; elsewhere, progress is not always so clear. -
A new album of music by the 88-year-old Estonian mystic seems to put an arm around you and whisper, "In troubled times, music can help." -
The Brooklyn-based composer talks about the artistic powers of her island homeland, writing scores for America's top orchestras and making music with plants. -
The young Icelandic pianist, once equated with Glenn Gould, exceeds the comparison in music by Bach that is played with transparent, lyrical joy.
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Absent from the recording studio for more than a decade, the restless musician has commissioned six composers for his new album. -
With plenty of humor, the octogenarian talks about her far-reaching career — including why she fled the modernist school of composers — and some mysterious visitations from her dead heroes. -
The intrepid violinist undertakes some of the most challenging solo violin music, marking the centenary of its creation by composer Eugéne Ysaÿe.
