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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Watch the superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma and many of his close friends from all over the world in action at a theatrical props warehouse in Brooklyn.
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To mark the venturesome string quartet's 40 years of commissioning and performing new music, composers Steve Reich, Terry Riley and others recall their favorite Kronos memories. -
A "pro-am" outreach experiment at the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra gives way to a burst of fun music-making: a one-performance, pop-up orchestra of professionals, students and amateurs of all ages. -
A slapstick 18 seconds for your day, when a trombonist fights back a sneeze mid-performance — and fails miserably.
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Whether you love or hate his ideas about commissioning new works and updating the classics, this Belgian impresario shifted public expectations of a night at the opera — permanently. -
For this year's Academy Awards, three documentaries — 20 Feet from Stardom, The Square and The Lady in Number 6 — use musicians' lives and experiences to frame some very big ideas. -
What does the champion ice dancer do after winning gold in Sochi? Play Vivaldi on the violin, of course. -
We took one of the world's most buzzed-about (and glam) pianists to the Steinway & Sons factory in Queens to play some fierce and fiery Prokofiev on a new instrument.
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A new TV pilot (Mozart in the Jungle) and released film (Grand Piano) attempt to pull the curtain back on the inner and outer lives of classical musicians. But maybe the most important achievement in both cases is to show that these players actually have lives offstage. -
One of the world's most successful crossover musicians, violinist Vanessa-Mae, will fulfill a lifelong dream by skiing the women's giant slalom at the Winter Olympics in Sochi next Tuesday. Though she is British, she is one half of the Olympic team from Thailand.
