Anastasia Tsioulcas
Anastasia Tsioulcas is a reporter on NPR's Arts desk. She is intensely interested in the arts at the intersection of culture, politics, economics and identity, and primarily reports on music. Recently, she has extensively covered gender issues and #MeToo in the music industry, including backstage tumult and alleged secret deals in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against megastar singer Plácido Domingo; gender inequity issues at the Grammy Awards and the myriad accusations of sexual misconduct against singer R. Kelly.
On happier days, Tsioulcas has celebrated the life of the late Aretha Franklin, traveled to Havana to profile musicians and dancers, revealed the hidden artistry of an Indian virtuoso who spent 60 years in her apartment and brought listeners into the creative process of composers Steve Reich and Terry Riley.
Tsioulcas was formerly a reporter and producer for NPR Music, where she covered breaking news in the music industry as well as a wide range of musical genres and artists. She has also produced episodes for NPR Music's much-lauded Tiny Desk concert series, and has hosted live concerts from venues like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and New York's (Le) Poisson Rouge. She also commissioned and produced several world premieres on behalf of NPR Music, including a live event that brought together 350 musicians to debut a new work together. As a video producer, she created high-profile video shorts for NPR Music, including performances by cellist Yo-Yo Ma in a Brooklyn theatrical props warehouse and pianist Yuja Wang in an icy-cold Steinway & Sons piano factory.
Tsioulcas has also reported from north and west Africa, south Asia, and across Europe for NPR and other outlets. Prior to joining NPR in 2011, she was widely published as a writer and critic on both classical and world music, and was the North America editor for Gramophone Magazine and the classical music columnist for Billboard.
Born in Boston and based in New York, Tsioulcas is a lapsed classical violinist and violist (shoutout to all the overlooked violists!). She graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University with a B.A. in comparative religion.
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Actors Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan give warm, deeply sympathetic performances as wide-ranging musician Leonard Bernstein and his wife, Felicia Montealegre Cohn, in a biopic directed by Cooper. -
A new live stage show features actor John Malkovich transformed into some of the meanest music critics ever — in real reviews skewering the work of great composers like Beethoven, Brahms and Chopin.
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Clarence Avant boosted the careers of a vast array of influential figures, including Michael Jackson, Jim Brown and Barack Obama. He came back into the news after his wife was murdered in 2021.
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O'Connor, who had one of the biggest hits of the early 1990s with her version of "Nothing Compares 2 U," became as well known for her political convictions and the tumult in her life as for her songs.
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The influential Japanese composer died March 28 from cancer. A wide-ranging musician, the Yellow Magic Orchestra co-founder was a synth-pop idol and the writer of sweeping movie scores.
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Hip-hop musician Pras Michel of Fugees faces criminal trial in Washington, D.C., for allegedly conspiring to violate election law and influence American policymakers on behalf of China.
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With four new prizes tonight, the megastar has now won more Grammys than any other artist in the awards' 65-year history. But Harry Styles took home the evening's biggest prize.
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The iconic singer of "Killing Me Softly" has the condition also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, a representative has announced. For Roberta Flack, it is now "impossible to sing and not easy to speak."
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The iconic rock 'n' roll pioneer and last living member of the "Million-Dollar Quartet" — whose meteoric rise collapsed almost as quickly as he ascended, thanks to scandal — has died at age 87.
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Emily Meggett spent decades caring for her community with her delicious, traditional Gullah Geechee food from South Carolina. She shared her recipes in her first cookbook, published when she was 89.
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Known for his sonic brashness and unyielding artistic vision, Birtwistle was awarded a British knighthood in 1988. He was one of the U.K.'s most prominent composers for decades.
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In a year of particularly wide-ranging nominees and competitive fields, bandleader Jon Batiste and the duo Silk Sonic came away with big prizes. Ukrainian president Zelenskyy also made an appearance.
