I hope you’ve got plenty of firecrackers. It’s time to frighten the monstrous Nian and welcome spring. In other words, it’s #ChineseNewYear.

This afternoon on The Classical Network, we welcome the Year of the Pig. Music by Chinese composers, including Chen Yi, Tan Dun, and Zhou Tian, will be interleaved with performances by Chinese musicians, including a thrilling rendition of the Liszt Sonata in B minor by the artist formerly known as Yundi Li.

We’ll enjoy the “Butterfly Lovers Concerto,” by Gang Chen and Zhanhao He, a work which, because of its beauty and popularity, has been described as “the Tchaikovsky Concerto of the East.” The concerto was an enormous success at its premiere in 1959. However, thanks to the vagaries of totalitarianism, everyone associated with the piece was jailed during the Cultural Revolution.

Another figure who suffered persecution was Ma Sicong, who fled the Red Guards to settle in Philadelphia, where he lived as a political exile for the last two decades of his life. We’ll hear Ma’s most famous piece, the “Inner Mongolia Suite.”

First, on today’s Noontime Concert, Britannia rules the waves. It’s a program devoted to the works of Thomas Arne. Arne is best known for having written “Rule, Britannia,” which crowns his masque “Alfred” of 1740. But what else did he compose? Broaden your knowledge with an hour of Arne’s vocal works and trio sonatas, performed by The Queens Consort. The program was presented last April at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City, part of the Thursday afternoon free Midtown Concerts series made possible in part by Gotham Early Music Scene, or GEMS.

Of course, we all know it’s really Nian who rules the waves. Join me for a new year of expanding horizons, from 12 to 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.