NPR: Anne Akiko Meyers: Tiny Desk Concert
When violinist Anne Akiko Meyers walked into NPR headquarters, I half expected her to be flanked by bodyguards. After all, she was carrying a very rare instrument. Her Guarneri del Gesù "Vieuxtemps" violin, built in 1741, is worth at least $16 million. Instead, Meyers arrived only with a pair of publicists and the perceptive pianist Max Levinson. She seemed nonchalant about the fact that her fiddle is worth a fortune.
What matters, naturally, is how the instrument sounds and few can make a violin sing as sweetly as Meyers. The San Diego native was already performing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson at age 11. Three years later she enrolled in New York's Juilliard School and at 18 cut the first of her 40-some albums.
NPR: Marc-André Hamelin: Tiny Desk Concert
Marc-André Hamelin has a marvelous, curious mind. While we chatted before his Tiny Desk concert, he snooped around the CD shelves near my desk, commenting on a few rarities and sharing his own eclectic tastes, including a crazy YouTube mashup of all 15 Shostakovich symphonies stacked on top of each other.
The Boston-based Montreal native is regarded as one of his generation's most technically astounding pianists, but he's no empty virtuoso. His interpretations are probing, precise and warm — keen to bring out humor when necessary. He routinely performs the world's most treacherous repertoire with his characteristic ease. I've witnessed him practically reduce a concert grand to matchsticks, and I've heard him tenderly caress a late Schubert sonata.
NPR: Mahan Esfahani, Tiny Desk Concert
The harpsichord is a beautiful but notoriously fussy instrument. After we wheeled one behind Bob Boilen's desk, it took the bulk of an hour to get the tuning just perfect for the very first Tiny Desk harpsichord recital. Given that our guest was Mahan Esfahani, the instrument's most ardent advocate, we were willing to wait.