Samuel Barber: Absolute Beauty

Known for his mournful "Adagio for Strings," Samuel Barber was never quite fashionable. This acclaimed film is a probing exploration of his music and melancholia. Performance, oral history, musicology, and biography combine to explore the life and music of one of America’s greatest composers. Features Thomas Hampson, Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop and many more of the world's leading experts on Barber's music, with tributes from composers Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson and William Schuman. The film was broadcast on PBS, and s...

Maestras: The Long Journey of Women to the Podium

When a woman steps onto the conductor's podium, she is always one of the first: the first to lead a world-class orchestra, the first to conduct the closing night of London's Proms, the first to win the German Conductor Prize. It seems as though the world of orchestral conducting might finally be ready to change its attitudes toward female conductors.

The Conductor

Leonard Bernstein’s protégée Marin Alsop reveals how she smashed the glass ceiling to become an internationally renowned conductor.