Neda Ulaby
Neda Ulaby reports on arts, entertainment, and cultural trends for NPR's Arts Desk.
Scouring the various and often overlapping worlds of art, music, television, film, new media and literature, Ulaby's stories reflect political and economic realities, cultural issues, obsessions and transitions.
A twenty-year veteran of NPR, Ulaby started as a temporary production assistant on the cultural desk, opening mail, booking interviews and cutting tape with razor blades. Over the years, she's also worked as a producer and editor and won a Gracie award from the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation for hosting a podcast of NPR's best arts stories.
Ulaby also hosted the Emmy-award winning public television series Arab American Stories in 2012 and earned a 2019 Knight-Wallace Fellowship at the University of Michigan. She's also been chosen for fellowships at the Getty Arts Journalism Program at USC Annenberg and the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism.
Before coming to NPR, Ulaby worked as managing editor of Chicago's Windy City Times and co-hosted a local radio program, What's Coming Out at the Movies. A former doctoral student in English literature, Ulaby has contributed to academic journals and taught classes in the humanities at the University of Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University and at high schools serving at-risk students.
Ulaby worked as an intern for the features desk of the Topeka Capital-Journal after graduating from Bryn Mawr College. But her first appearance in print was when she was only four days old. She was pictured on the front page of the New York Times, as a refugee, when she and her parents were evacuated from Amman, Jordan, during the conflict known as Black September.
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Philadelphia's public school system has over 1,000 broken instruments.
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Fallujah is based on the experiences of a real Marine, who lost friends and more as a gunner in Iraq. The show's libretto was written by an Iraqi-American.
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As a wild week on Wall Street comes to a close, experimental musician Jace Clayton shares his current work-in-progress: a composition that translates stocks' movements into sound.
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The former New Jersey poet laureate, born LeRoi Jones, has died at 79. Much of his work reflected a commitment to Black Nationalist ideals. He co-founded the Black Arts movement and his poems were as controversial as they were influential.
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Part of understanding African sacred music means thinking about its colonial context. It's the music of oppressed people combined with the music of their oppressors. For decades, Fred Onovwerosuoke has collected and arranged this music for choral groups.
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Food court mainstay Panda Express is now in the midst of a major transformation. It's adding premium products like Angus steak and portobello mushrooms, and new flavors to keep pace with an increasingly sophisticated American palate. But that fiendishly tasty orange chicken isn't going anywhere.
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New York City's Vision Festival honors New Orleans saxophonist Kidd Jordan Wednesday night. He still remains unknown outside avant-garde jazz circles, but Jordan says that doesn't matter. Staying true to his roots, Jordan teaches music in his hometown, where many of jazz's elite players have studied under him.
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Jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, who grew up in Montreal and called Canada home for his whole life, has died at the age of 82. He led the Oscar Peterson Trio for much of the 1950s and collaborated with jazz luminaries Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Milt Jackson and others.
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Throughout his 60-year career, Max Roach redefined jazz drumming by dividing rhythms in new ways and creating a wide palette of colors. Always the innovator, he extended possibilities for drummers, and helped develop modern jazz.