Michael Zwiebach

This Sunday, the place to be will be the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, where tot-rocker Alison Faith Levy and her band headline the sixth annual Yerba Buena Family Day.

This playlist features music that evokes night in many different senses of the word. There’s beautiful melody, but also some surprises.

Few composers can claim outstanding success in all genres of classical music; Antonin Dvořák is one of them. Dvořák, whose 162nd birthday will be commemorated on Sunday, was a star who wrote great symphonies, symphonic poems, concertos, and chamber music.

Listen to these classic tracks that commemorate the long struggle for human rights and dignity, and the trials of the everyday Joe and Jill.

Everybody needs a little sanity when it’s time to hit the books. So here is our first release of music to study by: a musical decompression chamber for the homework burdened who may be alone in the test-prep wilderness.

Today we celebrate a composer who once said of music: "There is no theory. You only have to listen. Pleasure is law."

We keep rediscovering the inexhaustibly deep musical traditions of Africa as artists from all over the world are refreshed and inspired by them. Her'es our late-summer introduction to a few of Africa's beautiful musical traditions.

Our friends over at NPR are running a summer contest to decide on "the great American symphony." Since they brought it up, here’s a list of American symphonies we think you ought to give a try. 

Ever since the music industry emerged as a mass commercial enterprise, musicians have waded between that "popular" music and classical (mostly uncommercial) music. In today’s mix, we sample music by musicians who have been at the top of the music industry but have refused to be defined by it.