Actor Tom Hiddleston reminisces about his childhood love of Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker and reveals that he still turns to the Russian Dance whenever he needs a shot of vitality in his day.

The Open Ears Project

BONUS: Tom Hiddleston on The Nutcracker

For the final episode in our opening season of The Open Ears Project, relationship therapist Esther Perel talks about the first time she heard Fauré’s Requiem as a young woman and how it seemed to “understand” an inexpressible sadness she was carrying inside her. She describes with great tenderness the way music connects her to her mother, a survivor of the Holocaust, and how this piece transports her to something akin to a religious experience. Keep listening after the episode to hear the full track.

30. Esther Perel on Peace

Project Coordinator Krystal Hawes explores the perfect imperfection of Maurice Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte. Keep listening after the episode to hear the full track.

29. Krystal Hawes on Imperfection

Rapper Dessa discusses how the craft, structure and emotion of Bach's Chaconne in D minor resonates through her life and work, revealing dynamic connections between classical and rap music. 

28. Dessa on Patience

Actor Jesse Eisenberg talks about how a trip to Poland led him to discover not only more about his family history and the holocaust, but the music of Frédéric Chopin, in particular the Etude Opus 10, No. 1. Keep listening after the episode to hear the full track.

27. Jesse Eisenberg on History

Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon gives moving insight into his long and inspiring journey with the music of Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto. Keep listening after the episode to hear the full track.

26. Christopher Wheeldon on A Journey

TV producer Megan Reid talks about Arvo Pärt’s Spiegel im Spiegel helped spark a lifelong obsession with ballet. Keep listening after the episode to hear the full track.

25. Megan Reid on What Changed My Life

Broadcaster Terrance McKnight links family, art, a late Beethoven piano bagatelle, and the extraordinary poetry of Langston Hughes.

24. Terrance McKnight on Overcoming Adversity

New York City art teacher Justin Jackson talks about how Edvard Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King inspired him as a child to march around the living room, and how he shares that excitement with his young students as he passes on his love of creativity, imagination, and the arts. Keep listening after the episode to hear the full track.

23. Justin Jackson on Imagination

WNYC host Alison Stewart talks about how she gave up learning the piano when she was young after the sudden death of her piano teacher, and how the rocking ebbs and flows of Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1 helped her come back to the instrument as an adult — and learn to let go. Keep listening after the episode to hear the full track.

22. Alison Stewart on Just Letting Go

Architect Daniel Libeskind reflects on the healing power of music and architecture and reveals his lifelong obsession with the dazzling Toccata and Fugue by JS Bach.

21. Daniel Libeskind on Perspective

Digital strategist Jacqui Cheng shares how she discovered the music of Bach via her 1980s Atari 2600 habit, but it’s the Violin Sonata No. 1 that helps walk her through a period of grief. Keep listening after the episode to hear the full track.

20. Jacqui Cheng on Resolution

Jazz Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis discusses how Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 16 helped him understand the role of music — and musician — in connecting the past and the future. Keep listening after the episode to hear the full track.

19. Wynton Marsalis on Time and Consciousness

Instagram’s Eva Chen talks about how Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 17 helps her switch between gears as she moves from a busy life in fashion to being a working mother to writing a successful series of children’s books. Keep listening after the episode to hear the full track.

18. Eva Chen on Nourishing The Soul

Comedian and actor Eddie Izzard talks about how Debussy’s Clair de Lune became “comfort music” after her mother died when she was a child, and still elevates her from the noise and chaos of everyday life.

17. Eddie Izzard on Elevation

Part mix tape, part sonic love-letter, the Open Ears Project is a daily podcast where people share the classical track that means the most to them. Each episode offers a soulful glimpse into other human lives, helping us to hear this music—and each other—differently. The Open Ears Project is produced by WQXR and WNYC Studios, home of great podcasts including Radiolab, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media, Nancy, and Here’s the Thing with Alec Baldwin.

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The Open Ears Project

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