Blog/News

We’re back from our week-long trip to Colorado which was packed to the brim with all sorts of events. Colorado is home to two of the best summer music festivals in America, and we were lucky enough to be invited to participate in both. We started out in Vail, as part of the Bravo! Vail […]

Chad Lilley is From the Top’s first Beth Klarman Fellow, spending a summer interning with our marketing and program teams, and has appeared on NPR’s From the Top with Host Christopher O’Riley. This is part two of his blog series on seeing the other side of From the Top. You can read parts 1 here. *** […]

Prologue: My name is Chad Lilley, and I’m a classical saxophonist and Washington DC area native. I appeared on NPR’s From the Top with Host Christopher O’Riley in the fall of my junior year: October 5, 2013, in the near acoustically (and aesthetically) perfect Jordan Hall at The New England Conservatory. In the summer after […]

July 9, 2015: Tonight we recorded Episode 309 of NPR’s From the Top with Host Christopher O’Riley at the Vilar Center at the wonderful Bravo! Vail Music Festival. You can hear this show on stations nationwide during the week of October 5, 2015. One of our featured young musicians, 17-year-old violinist Mira Yamamoto, is also a […]

Oh Chautauqua, how I miss you already! I’m home in Boston now, but just days ago I was at the Chautauqua Institution in Southwestern New York, where we recorded an episode of our radio show. If you haven’t heard of Chautauqua, let me paint a quick picture for you: imagine a huge, private summer resort completely […]

A few weeks back, we shared our cover of Charlie Puth and Wiz Khalifa’s See You Again, which has been seen by more than 100,000 viewers to date on YouTube and Facebook. At that same recording session, the From the Top band took a crack at another, quite different, current hit: FourFiveSeconds, performed by Rihanna, […]

We have heavy and grateful hearts here at From the Top today as we remember Gunther Schuller, who passed away over the weekend. Mr. Schuller appeared twice on From the Top; the first early in our history (Show 48) and then in 2011 on a very special “highlight show”, during which he and Christopher O’Riley discussed some of his favorite pieces from […]

In March 2015, From the Top alumni Anna DeLoi, Matt Dykeman, Ryan Shannon, and Chad Lilley participated in a week-long From the Top arts leadership residency in southeastern Kentucky where they explored how music can be used as a central tool for leadership and community building. In response to the question “What am I learning about myself as […]

If you’re here, that means you’re part of the From the Top family…Michael Thurber, alum and gala performer And if you’re reading this, you are too. We’re grateful for every single one of you, as we couldn’t do what we do without your support: listening to our NPR radio show, sharing our videos and stories, […]

Just down the street from our offices is Berklee College of Music, where we filmed this latest video. Charlie Puth, who wrote the incredibly popular song “See You Again,” also happens to be a Berklee grad, as is Evan Chapman, who did the arrangement. In this video, From the Top musicians from Berklee, New England […]

NPR’s From the Top with Host Christopher O’Riley alum Yuga Cohler (Shows 104, 142 and From the Top at Carnegie Hall on PBS), is no longer playing his oboe full time. But it’s not due to a lack of interest in music! Yuga is the newly appointed Music Director and Conductor of the Young Musicians […]

The incredible From the Top band covers Jennifer Lopez’s “Feel the Light” from the Dreamworks movie Home. Shot on location at Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Massachusetts. And yes, we used drones. We’re cool like that. A From the Top video. All rights reserved. Please contact info@fromthetop.org for more information. www.fromthetop.org www.facebook.com/fromthetopfans …

This outreach event took place during the weekend of Show 305 in Miami, Florida. A shy boy with a mop of dark hair sits quietly on the side of the classroom at Pine Villa Elementary School in Miami, Florida. When Antonio Urrutia, one of the performers on From the Top’s recent residency in the area, […]

This is a special look into Show 305. To listen, click here. When 14-year-old Matthew Hakkarainen pulled the bow across the strings of his violin and the last note of the Kreisler Praeludium and Allegro rang out through Gusman Concert Hall at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music, the audience erupted in applause. […]

“When I was four, I took [my father’s] trumpet when he was taking a break, and I got a good sound.” Elmer Churampi told Christopher O’Riley on Show 268. “On that day, he told me that I was going to be a trumpet player.” And that he would. From the moment Elmer picked up the trumpet, […]

From the Top alum Kevin Olusola of Pentatonix beatboxes with fellow alum and violinist Kate Arndt, covering Sugar by Maroon 5. A From the Top video. Direct all inquiries to info@fromthetop.org. Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/fromthetopfans Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/fromthetop Follow us on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/fromthetopfans Check out our blog: …

In 2015, From the Top commissioned a new musical work from alum Michael Thurber, that would feature the next generation of classical musicians. His concerto, “The Three Musketeers: A play for instruments” premiered on From the Top’s live recording at Interlochen Center for the Arts on March 13. Excerpts from this piece will be broadcast […]

NEW SHOW: From Denver, Colorado, this week’s episode features a special guest appearance by one of America’s finest living film composers, Danny Elfman. Our young musicians perform arrangements of his music from the soundtracks of Milk and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Mr. Elfman also shares stories from his own colorful teenage years, and a phenomenal […]

  It’s that time of year again when we can go mad from one of two things. 1) a very slowly approaching spring (cough cough, if you live in Boston), or 2) sports, specifically the NCAA tournament. For those of you “non sports” types, that’s basketball. College basketball, to be even more specific. How does this […]

“Jump right in!” a young lady with long brown hair belts out from the stage, her foot tapping as she dances along with the music, “Let the music pull you in, jump right in!” The more than 500 middle and high school students in the audience here in Hazard, Kentucky are very familiar with this […]