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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Meredith Monk's march lives up to its "Light" name — it's a pure distillation of joy.
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The mezzo-soprano with the smoky, sultry voice defined Carmen for generations — and earned Hollywood fame at the prime of her career. Stevens died Wednesday at 99. -
How does an Argentine Jewish artist approach the ultimate Christian narrative? MacArthur "genius" Osvaldo Golijov says it's by creating a "Latin American Jesus." His Passion According to St. Mark was recently staged at Carnegie Hall with a diverse group of singers from New York schools.
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You read that right. Forget Friday the 13th and beware the Ides of March instead. (It was great advice, even if Julius Caesar didn't take it.) Comfort yourself in the glory that was Rome, courtesy of Respighi's blazing "Pines of the Appian Way" — performed on another momentous occasion.
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Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa decided to rev up her stalled-out career in a very 21st-century way: by putting up dozens of videos of herself playing core repertoire. Now she's a superstar by any traditional standard. Do her major-label recordings matter?
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A new opera by David T. Little chronicles three generations of soldiers' experiences in journalistic style — and resurrects some important questions about the function of art.
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Hear one of the most exciting pieces of 21st-century music: a new retelling of Jesus' last days, from Latin American and Jewish perspectives, courtesy of composer Osvaldo Golijov and collaborators.
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A conductor formed in the opera houses of postwar Germany had a surprising late-life renaissance in the U.S. The former Philadelphia Orchestra music director died Friday at 89.
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A new study from the University of Melbourne claims that when you don't understand music, you don't even really hear it. And the more you hear it — and understand it — the more you might love it.
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From Christopher Purves' bottomless bass voice and the soaring Sibelius Fifth to a violist's new take on the Baroque, it's this week's list of albums we can't stop listening to.
