Anastasia Tsioulcas

Anastasia Tsioulcas appears in the following:

Read These While They're Still Free

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Last month, The New Yorker announced that it was teasing a new "freemium" version of its website (which launches this fall) with an alluring proposition. All of its most recent pieces, plus the full archives back to 2007 and some even older selections, are free for the rest ...

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Ibeyi, 'River'

Thursday, August 07, 2014

The video for Ibeyi's song "River" is, frankly, more than a little unsettling. Twin sisters take turns staring flatly into the camera, singing expressionlessly, in between being repeatedly submerged underwater. Are we witnessing a baptism or a drowning? It's unclear. But the song is so darkly beautiful and beguiling that ...

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Latitudes: The International Music You Must Hear In July

Thursday, July 31, 2014

You might not think that sunny summer is the best time to go burrowing deep into dusty sonic arcana. But I feel an immense compulsion to do so right now, thanks a string of superb new compilations of vintage material — paired with the release this month of Amanda Petrusich's ...

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A Breath Of Inspiration: John Luther Adams' New 'Sila'

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Composer John Luther Adams has been enjoying enormous success. He won this year's Pulitzer Prize for his expansive, unsettling and darkly beautiful orchestral piece Become Ocean, which will be released in the fall in a recording by the Seattle Symphony. His monumental 2009 percussion ...

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America's Youth Orchestra Hits The Road — This Time, Playing For U.S.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Last year, the Carnegie Hall-organized National Youth Orchestra of the USA launched amid a rush of media attention from across the country and around the world, with performances in Moscow, St. Petersburg and London. This week, a fresh crop of very talented young musicians, all between the ages ...

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How The 3 Tenors Sang The Hits And Changed The Game

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Twenty years ago, José Carreras, Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti gave a sold-out concert at LA's Dodger Stadium. It still echoes today in both the music business and public TV.

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Conductor Lorin Maazel, Who Brought America To The Podium, Dies

Sunday, July 13, 2014

One of the most prominent American conductors, Lorin Maazel, died today at his home at Castleton Farms, Va. He was 84. His death was announced by the Castleton Festival, the annual summer series he founded. The festival officially attributed his death to complications stemming from pneumonia; however, the ...

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After 36 Years, A Trumpeter Sounds His Last Note In New York

Thursday, July 03, 2014

This Saturday evening, the New York Philharmonic is bidding a fond goodbye to principal trumpeter Philip Smith, who is retiring after 36 years with the orchestra. The NY Phil brass and percussion ensemble is putting on a special concert in his honor.

Smith joined the New ...

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What Happens When 350 Musicians Meet For The First Time In Brooklyn?

Wednesday, July 02, 2014

We at NPR Music leave a lot of variables out in the wild when we make Field Recordings. That's especially true when we commission new music for the annual Make Music New York festival, as we have for three years.

Since we're not using a traditional stage and people are ...

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Latitudes: International Music You Must Hear In June

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Since June is the traditional month for weddings, how about we turn our ears this month to two odd-but-charming marriages and a party that devolves into a drunken episode?

The first two are oddball transcultural affairs. The first pairs the Korean hit-maker Psy with the affable Snoop Dogg, while the ...

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What's Worth $45 Million — Or More? One Viola

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

The sale of the most expensive musical instrument in history could be announced Wednesday. And it's a viola. (Will the viola jokes stop now?)

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Making Joyful Noise At Make Music New York 2014

Sunday, June 22, 2014

We put out a call and they came — by the hundreds. When we invited wind, brass and percussion players to join us yesterday in Brooklyn to perform a world premiere by Red Baraat's Sunny Jain for the annual Make Music New York festival, ...

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A Rhythm That Has Waltzed Away With Hearts

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Swaying triple time has besotted dancers and musicians alike around the globe. But the quintessential high-society dance has surprisingly indecent roots.

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On A Magical Mystery Tour With Hassan Hakmoun

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

When we plan Field Recordings, we usually look far and wide to find off-the-beaten-path locations for filming musicians. But a unique opportunity presented itself when a duo called Wanderlust Projects — designers of "transgressive placemaking experiences" for urban explorers, usually in abandoned or otherwise off-limits places ...

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Rafael Fruhbeck De Burgos, Versatile Spanish Conductor, Dies At 80

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

The widely admired Spanish conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos died this morning in Pamplona, Spain at age 80. It was just a week ago that Frühbeck acknowledged he was ill with cancer and announced, via the Boston Symphony Orchestra, that he would have to cease working.

"After meeting with ...

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Coffee And Mambo With Sergio Mendoza Y La Orkesta

Wednesday, June 04, 2014

Many of us at NPR Music fell hard for Arizona's Sergio Mendoza and his band La Orkesta this year. Together, they mix myriad Latin styles — what Mendoza calls "indie mambo," salted with generous handfuls of cumbia, merengue and ranchera — and then feed all that through a ...

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What Weeks Of Debate Have Shown Us About Women In Classical Music

Tuesday, June 03, 2014

An astonishing conversation has emerged in the weeks since Irish mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught began her run as Octavian at the Glyndebourne Festival in England. Erraught was excoriated by a handful of male London critics for her weight — prompting a widespread backlash on her behalf in the aftermath ...

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Latitudes: The International Music You Need To Hear Now

Thursday, May 29, 2014

This month's pick of music from around the globe is, for the most part, lifted from current events. From a propaganda song that conquered Egypt in the run-up to the new round of presidential elections to a throwback to a very little-known chapter of the late Maya Angelou's ...

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Read Joyce DiDonato's Inspiring Juilliard Commencement Speech

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Star mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato gave the 2014 commencement address at Juilliard Friday — and it's a memorable one, both for her words and by DiDonato's own example as someone whose own career began under low heat.

DiDonato has posted the text of her speech on her ...

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First Listen: Gabriel Kahane, 'The Ambassador'

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Composer and singer-songwriter Gabriel Kahane says that the inspiration for his new album, The Ambassador, is 10 buildings in Los Angeles — appropriate, given what a gifted musical architect he is.

The Ambassador is structured as a set of 10 vignettes, each a meditation on life in ...

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