This Sunday, The First-Ever

This Sunday, the first-ever Performance Today Awards, the first of their kind on the American classical music scene, will be given out at a Classical Music Coalition ceremony in Washington, DC. The PT Awards salute artistic excellence as well as commitment to expanding the horizons and awareness of classical music, will be given to artists who have excelled on disc, on the radio, and in concert. One of the six categories is Debut Artist of the Year, an award to be given to a young performer or ensemble making a first appearance on PT during calendar year 1995. All this week we'll revisit the work of the five Debut Artist nominees, beginning with Les Violons du Roy (lay vee-oh-loh(n) d(oo) RWAH)—"The King's Violins"—an ensemble of 15 musicians from Quebec City in Canada, who came south of the border to perform music by Franz Benda and Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach in NPR's Studio 4A last April. Bernard Labadie (bair-nahr lah-bah-DEE) is the director of the group, known for its novel approach to the Baroque and Classical repertoires, such as playing modern stringed instruments with period bows. We'll hear Les Violons play two brief Symphonies, on in D minor by J.C.F. Bach, the other in C by Czech composer Franz Benda. (NPR)