Mark Rylance and Friends perform at The Carnegie Library Music Hall of Homestead to acknowledge the 125th Anniversary of the 1892 Battle of Homestead, when thousands of locked-out steel workers and townspeople clashed with Pinkerton guards hired by Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Carnegie. Rylance calls it “a story worthy of Shakespeare.” Actor-activist–playwright Rylance comes back to Pittsburgh to perform some of his favorite speeches from Shakespeare, as well as revisiting resonant words, characters, songs and situations leading up to 1892, joining with his co-writer Peter Reder, local actors and musicians.  Rylance talks to WQED-FM's Anna Singer.

Chamber Music Pittsburgh begins the Just Summer series at the Kelly Strayhorn theater in East Liberty with Anton Miller and Rita Porfiris violin and viola duo accompanying silent films including  Charlie Chaplin. They both teach at the Hartt School of Music in Connecticut. Rita played under Christoph Eschenbach in the Houston Symphony. They've made a number of cds and championing music by Robert Fuchs, Gliere, Martinu and Milhaud.

Jim Cunningham chats with Elliott Dinkin about his work with Cowden Associates, his blog, admiration for tennis superstar Roger Federer, his piano playing and arts mad relatives including conductor and impresario Jacques Brourman who founded the Bedford Springs Festival Orchestra. Also why his company supports WQED-FM and why you should too.

Deborah Sunya Moore, Vice President and Director of Programming at Chautauqua Institution, reveals her personal picks from the 2000 events scheduled for July and August in the 2017 season.  Interview topics include: What’s the latest on the acoustics in the new Amphitheater; new directions for Sunday afternoons; Chautauqua Opera and Dance; and much more.

Pittsburgh Symphony cellist and former Marine Band member Charlie Powers appears as a soloist with pianist Rodrigo Ojeda in a free concert at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall June 30 with the Pittsburgh Symphony and soloists Katy Shackleton Williams and Ricky Manning. Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries turns up in the middle of a program of mostly American favorites, the Services Salute, John Williams Hymn to the Fallen and Superman March. It’s free but you should first listen to the interview and register online.

Curtis Institute conducting star Maestro Steve Hackman discusses his Mash Up Mix Down concert Wednesday June 14 with Happy Hour at 5 and concert at 6:30pm at Heinz Hall with the Pittsburgh Symphony putting together the Beatles, Dvorak, Justin Timberlake, Samuel Barber, Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven with Henry Purcell, Beethoven, John Legend, Vivaldi, Guns N Roses plus Mozart and the Dave Mathews Band. Time for Three is the special guest. Steve Hackman fills us in on his  return from his Boston Pops debut with four concerts. Has he taken any slings and arrows for mixing Tchaikovsky and Drake? Of course. He loves the audience and the musicians he works with in Pittsburgh.

"Gathering of Sons" opens the 40th season of Pittsburgh Festival Opera – formerly Opera Theater of Pittsburgh founded by Mildred Miller Posvar.  Performances begin this Thursday and Friday and Mt. Ararat Church beginning at 7:30.  Kevin Maynor Bass and Dwayne Fulton Composer were the guests.  For Tickets 412-326-9687.

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra guest pianist Behzod Abduraimov shares his thoughts about the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No 1 which he plays for his Heinz Hall debut. He recalls his journey from Tashkent to Kansas City where he’s lived the last ten years, what it’s like there and in his native Tashkent where he attended the same school as Yefim Bronfman. He talks about his recordings including the  Tchaikovsky with Juraj Valcuha and  a suggestion of what to try when in Tashkent—don’t miss the rice pilaf!

WQED's Jim Cunningham sits down to interview famed-Mexican pianist Jorge Federico Osorio on the release of his newest album, "Final Thoughts: The Last Piano Works of Schubert &a Brahms." Together, the two discuss the engaging musical referentiality of the great composers whose works Osorio plays, as well as Osorio's colorful history with other famous artists.

The International Cather Seminar is scheduled for June 11-17, 2017, at Pittsburgh's Duquesne University. During Cather's ten years in Pittsburgh, she worked as an editor, teacher, reviewer, and freelance writer. As importantly, she collected friends and mixed with all sorts of Pittsburghers.  WQED-FM's Jim Cunningham sat down with conductor Yudo Ikach, Seminar Co-Director James Japp, and English Professor Kim Vanderlaan to discuss the seminar.