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NPR Music's Stephen Thompson welcomes Celia Gregory of Nashville public radio station WNXP to discuss the week's new releases.

Richard Strauss’ Tod und Verklarung (Death and Transfiguration) is a monumental meditation on the journey of life, beginning in childhood, through the trials and joys of adulthood, and ending in the transfiguration of the spirit. Music Director Rafael Payare conducts the Symphony in Strauss’ powerful tone poem along with William Walton’s beautifully lyrical and nostalgic Viola Concerto, written when the composer was only 27 years old; the concerto was intended for the great soloist Lionel Tertis, who played an 18th century viola of enormous dimensions with a sound of extraordinary richness, almost like a cello. The result is one of the few widely played concertos for this instrument, demanding from the soloist the sweetest melodic playing with the most vigorous and athletic virtuosity. The concert ends with Brahms’ melancholy and hauntingly beautiful Second Symphony. This immortal work was written in one of Brahms’ favorite vacation retreats, in southern Austria on the beautiful lake of the Wörthersee. “Here," said Brahms, “the melodies grow so thick upon the ground that one must take care not to step on them as one walks.” In an equally humorous mood, he wrote to his publisher about his new symphony: “I have never written anything so sad, and the score must be published in mourning clothes.” Visit: https://www.sandiegosymphony.org/performances/symphonic-journeys-strauss-walton-brahms/ San Diego Symphony on Instagram and Facebook

Following a harrowing week of deadly wildfires in Los Angeles, multiple San Diego-area organizations announced Tuesday the outpouring of donations for victims had nearly filled their headquarters.

Rwandan backed rebels have entered the city of Goma, a key city in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. Could the mineral rich region be in danger of tipping into all out regional conflict?

Chinese immigrants sacrificed to create America's first transcontinental railroad. Its completion may have contributed to a backlash that led to the first major immigration clampdown in U.S. history.

President Trump's executive order that the federal government recognizes only two sexes, male and female, is disrupting the lives of some trans, nonbinary and intersex people applying for passports.

Wet weather is on its way to San Diego County Tuesday, forecasters said.

Tianyi Lu, conductor Paul Lewis, piano San Diego Symphony Orchestra Gareth Farr "The Invocation of the Sea" from From the Depths Sound the Great Sea Gongs Grieg: Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16 Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36 Winner of the Sir Georg Solti International Conductors' Competition, conductor Tianyi Lu opens her concert with the self-standing first movement of Gareth Farr’s From the Depths Sound the Great Sea Gongs. Farr is one of New Zealand’s leading composers and a distinguished percussionist whose music pulsates with exultant rhythms and colors reflecting his love of the landscapes and surrounding oceans of his native islands, as well as his fascination with his country’s Māori musical and mythic traditions which go back hundreds of years before the arrival of Europeans. At the opposite end of the world, Norway’s greatest composer Edvard Grieg made his name when still a very young man with his brilliant and loveable Piano Concerto, still perhaps the composer’s most popular work and one of the most familiar piano concertos in world repertoire. The distinguished soloist will be the English pianist Paul Lewis. And the concert ends with one of the best loved of all Tchaikovsky’s works, his intensely dramatic Fourth Symphony, written at one of the most productive periods in the composer’s life, the time of his ballet Swan Lake and his opera Eugene Onegin. Operatic and balletic this symphony certainly is, with its fateful horn calls and its yearning melodies, and its infectious dance rhythms and sheer physical élan. For Jacobs Masterworks concerts, only children ages five years and older will be allowed into the concert hall. These children must have a ticket and be able to sit in an un-accompanied seat. Visit: https://www.sandiegosymphony.org/performances/from-the-depths-liu-leads-tchaikovskys-4th-symphony/ San Diego Symphony on Instagram and Facebook

Searching for small fossils in big rocks requires specialized tools --tools that scientists could also use to look for evidence of life on Mars in rocks that may be similar on both planets.

Alaska Airlines will begin a daily nonstop flight to Medford through Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport starting May 15.