Blog/News

This week, From the Top traveled to Baton Rouge to tape a radio show at Louisiana State University’s College of Music and Dramatic Arts. Our ten young artists brought a variety of genres and personalities to Tuesday’s show, and gave an unforgettable performance! Six of the ten joined us the following morning for the Arts […]

We just got home from taping a show in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at the Shaver Theatre at LSU. It was our first time in Louisiana and it was a fantastic experience! The show was full of standout moments. It opened with a dazzling performance by 15-year-old cellist Jean Kim, a wonderfully expressive musician, who played […]

The Montgomery Symphony Orchestra has announced the next Blount-Slawon Young Artists Competition on January 29-30, 2011 at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama. Applications must be post marked by December 10th! The competition is open to 7th-12th graders who go to school in the US. String, wind, brass, percussion, and piano are all eligible for entry.  The […]

On this week’s show, 17-year-old saxophone player Justin Moser relived his experience auditioning for American Idol with our host Christopher O’Riley. Nerves may have gotten the best of him at his audition, but he certainly nailed his From the Top performance and this singing demo! Check it out.

From the Top alum and harpist Sage Po will appear in an upcoming PBS documentary called “My Musical Life.” This film is about the lives of Sage and four of her fellow young musicians who are part of the Music in the Mountains (MIM) Young Composers Program in Nevada County, California. The MIM Young Composers […]

We believe that Music is Powerful Stuff and that young people can make an important contribution to the world by sharing who they are and what they love to do. This year we’ve launched a Campaign for Arts Leadership – a national call for compelling stories that will inspire musicians, young and old, across the […]

This week’s show (Show 220) was taped at the Adler Theatre in Davenport, Iowa on Tuesday October 12, 2010. We asked our performers to tell us about the music they performed on the show: Justin Moser, 17, alto saxophone Rondo  from Lamento et Rondo By: Pierre Sancan My favorite part of this piece is the […]

From the Top’s Arts Leadership Program empowers young artists to make a difference in their communities through what they love to do most: music. This past Monday, seven performers from our Boston taping joined us for the Arts Leadership Orientation, where they explored what Arts Leadership means to them. Every show presents a different cast […]

Just got some great news from Pianist Michael Brown, who appeared on Show 109 in Lancaster, PA in November of 2004. He just won first prize in the prestigious 2010 Concert Artists Guild (CAG) competition in New York! The CAG’s mission is to discover, nurture and promote young musicians. What’s especially cool about this concert is that winners […]

Hi everyone. Sunday we taped a wonderful show at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall in Boston. Let me dive right in and tell you all about it! The show opened with teenage violinist Francesca Bass, playing one of my all-time favorite pieces, Pablo de Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen. After that exciting start, trumpeter Baldvin Oddsson took the […]

We just got wind of a cool From the Top alum collaboration. Soprano Hailey Markman (Show 209 in Waimea, Hawaii) got to know guitarist Tim Callobre (Shows 090 in Lubbock, Texas and 150 in Malibu, California and From the Top at Carnegie Hall) after a From the Top fundraiser in Los Angeles, and they ended […]

As you can see from Joanne’s On the Road blog, we had a great time in Davenport and Parkersburg, Iowa! It turns out that one of our performers, alto saxophone player Justin Moser, has a father who loves do to video as a hobby. Mark Moser was kind enough to tape the performances from the […]

We are celebrating the achievements and future developments of our 2010 Margaret Stewart Lindsay Arts Leadership Award recipients. These five individuals represent the first cohort of From The Top’s Margaret Stewart Lindsay Award (MSL) projects and are all inspiring examples of leadership. Now, one year after it all started, we ask our MSL recipients to reflect […]

6 years have passed since Brian Heveron-Smith was on our Show #097 in Iowa City, where he performed the third movement of Concertino for Marimba by Paul Creston. In that time he’s graduated school, played drums on a Caribbean cruise ship, toured the east coast with jazz pianist Solomon Douglas, explored Africa, and more (if you can […]

We are excited to partner with Carnegie Hall to announce the Big Break – a new online contest that offers young musicians the chance to compete for a spot on NPR’s From the Top  radio broadcast, hosted by Christopher O’Riley, as well as an opportunity to grace the stage at Carnegie Hall, performing in a […]

Last week the From the Top crew and nine performers gathered together in Davenport, Iowa to tape a radio show. The following morning was the Arts Leadership Orientation, during which performers reflect on using music for positive change. Upon naming themselves “The Rave,” the performers designed a video for From the Top’s Green Room which […]

Tuesday, October 5th, was the first in a series of Boston Arts Leadership gatherings From the Top is hosting to bring together local musicians – high school, college and beyond – who are passionate about using music to make a difference. We met with some of last year’s Margaret Stewart Lindsay Arts Leadership Award recipients […]

    Hi everybody! I’m writing to you from backstage at the Aplington-Parkersburg High School in Iowa where we are about to go onstage for the show. We taped a show last night in Davenport, and then went on the road to bring the same show to Parkersburg, a small town in central Iowa that […]

From the Top alum and Roving Report Caeli Smith recently wrote a great blog for Juilliard’s Office of Admissions. Caeli’s a first-year violinist at Juilliard, and in this piece she talks about the transition from pre-college to college. Below is a short excerpt. To read more, click over to the Office of Admissions Blog. During […]

This past May From the Top alum and cellist John-Henry Crawford (Show 206 in Dallas, TX and Show 219 in St. Paul, MN) performed with Dr. Hung Sung, a collaborative pianist for the Curtis Institute of Music, at the City Center Academy (a high school) in Philadelphia, PA. John-Henry said “I wanted to do this […]