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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.