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Marin Alsop made history this week when she was chosen as the new music director for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. She's the first woman conductor of a major American orchestra. Alsop tells Scott Simon about the appointment, and about opposition from symphony musicians.

Five acclaimed American conductors and composers — from Pulitzer Prize winners Jennifer Higdon and David Lang to the Atlanta Symphony's Robert Spano — pick their favorite homegrown symphonic works.

Members of the symphony are performing around the city using a collection of string instruments that survived the Holocaust.

Finnish composer Jean Sibelius introduces some of his most memorable ideas in his fifth symphony. Inspired by swans in flight, the symphony ends in a magnificent blaze of glory.

The Baltimore Symphony ended a tumultuous search for a new conductor Tuesday with the appointment of Marin Alsop as the BSO's next music director. But not everybody is happy. Host Fred Child talks with Performance Today producer Roger Wight for details on the Baltimore story.

The middle of the 20th century was a golden age for American symphonic music. From William Grant Still's celebration of African-American culture to Marc Blitzstein's ode to aviation and the U.S. military, Harvard scholar Carol Oja explores a compellingly diverse group of American symphonies.

The orchestra was mid-performance when news of the president's assassination reached the symphony hall in 1963. The musicians had to decide: suspend the concert or continue? Their decision transformed a moment of shock into a moment of shared consolation.

Any list of the all-time best classical recordings would have to include the urgent, sinuous performances of Beethoven's fifth and seventh symphonies with Carlos Kleiber conducting the Vienna Philharmonic.

The Charlotte Symphony decided it wants a sonic logo, so it got a composer to write a seven-second piece of music for the orchestra.

Whenever the reclusive Carlos Kleiber conducted an orchestra, it was a major event. Hear him bring out all the pent-up emotions in Brahms' final symphony, with the help of the Vienna Philharmonic.