Everyone has had the experience of singing or humming a tune that’s been driving you crazy, trying to identify it. A music discovery Web site offers some help.

"No one seems exactly sure who turned that phrase about the oboe, but it does seem to have happened long before my assault on the instrument," says our Naomi Lewin.

For WQXR's Naomi Lewin, the biggest stars of the Met's opening-night gala were James Levine and the Met Orchestra. If you attended, give us your review.

The Metropolitan Opera season opens tonight with Das Rheingold, the first opera in Wagner's epic Ring cycle. My guest today is James Jorden, who is most famous - or should I say infamous - for his alter ego La Cieca on the e-zine Parterre.com. He also writes about opera for the New York Post.

Erich Kunzel, long-time conductor of the Cincinnati Pops, died a year ago, at the age of 74. Kunzel wasn’t just Cincinnati’s conductor -- for nearly two decades, he led the National Symphony Orchestra in A Capitol Fourth and Memorial Day concerts on the lawn of the Capitol Building that were broadcast around the country on PBS.

Tomorrow night, the Metropolitan Opera starts its second annual (hopefully, anyway) Summer HD Festival. They’ll be spending the next ten nights out on Lincoln Center Plaza showing operas that were originally beamed live into movie theaters. And it’s free!

Adam Delehanty, who keeps our schedules straight at WQXR, just asked, "This may be a naïve question, but why does Mozart's music all have "K." numbers after it?"  It's a great question.

I hadn’t even read the ecstatic New York Times review of Mark Morris Dance Group’s Mostly Mozart Festival performance of L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato  yet when I called my Mom, and said I would cheerfully go right back and see it again.  Sitting in the theater, I was thrilled by the imaginative choreography and luminous dancing, and also by the fact that it was all “accompanied” by a topnotch, live performance of a piece by Handel.

I have a rule about street musicians. If they make me smile, I give them money. And that goes for subway musicians, too.

What does the City sound like...in pictures? Friday, July 23rd is the last day to show us. WQXR's Jerome L. Greene Space is holding a contest called "Making Visible the Invisible," looking for photos that portray the sound of New York.

Singers from the Metropolitan Opera put on a great show for their first recital of the season, at SummerStage in Central Park. As I sat there listening, I couldn't help noticing how diverse the audience was.  People of every age, ethnic background, gender identification, you name it, all out there enjoying opera on a summer night.

Gustav Mahler was born 150 years ago this week and we're celebrating with a week-long "Mahlerfest" on WQXR.org.  Check it out!

Stephen Foster was a Yankee Doodle Dandy, born on the Fourth of July. In celebration of his birth, Naomi Lewin created an hour-long program of his music.

Two wonderful events with WQXR listeners in one day: first, a convergence at the "Play Me, I'm Yours" piano at the Columbus Circle entrance to Central Park. Lots of people turned up to listen -- and to perform!

Merriam-Webster defines diva (Italian for "goddess") as a prima donna (Italian for "first woman"). The dictionary gives two English definitions for prima donna: (1) a principal female singer in an opera, and (2) a vain or undisciplined person who finds it difficult to work…as part of a team.

This week marks the 200th anniversary of Robert Schumann's birth, which we've been celebrating all week long on WQXR. Robert Schumann was well known for writing music and prose--in addition to being a composer, he was also a music critic and journalist. But it's clear that Robert Schumann would not have had nearly the success he did if he hadn't married Clara Wieck, a highly talented pianist and composer who served as his partner and muse.

Tuesday marks Robert Schumann's 200th birthday. In celebration, WQXR presents "Robert and Clara," a Studio 360 profile of the Schumanns that Naomi Lewin created about THE musical power couple of 19th century Europe.

Lots of composers put the sounds of Nature into their compositions.  Think of Antonio Vivaldi's Four Seasons, or Ludwig van Beethoven's Sixth Symphony. In the 20th century, composers started putting outdoor sounds of a different nature into their work. György Ligeti's opera Le Grand Macabre (which the New York Philharmonic performed so brilliantly last week--you can hear the broadcast June 10 on WQXR), features not one, but two “Car Horn Preludes.” They're scored for twelve bulbed horns (like the kind on a bicycle), each one tuned to a specific pitch. Some of the Ligeti horns were so big and heavy that the percussionists had to stomp on them to play them!

I’m really looking forward to the New York Philharmonic’s production of Le Grand Macabre, by György Ligeti. Ligeti wrote some wonderful, innovative music.  When I was in college, I got to sing his Lux Aeterna (which also put in an audio appearance in "2001: A Space Odyssey"). It was one of the most memorable choral experiences of my life. 

Is there music that triggers instant memories for you that have nothing to do with the music itself?