Anastasia Tsioulcas

Anastasia Tsioulcas is a correspondent on NPR's Culture desk. She is intensely interested in the arts at the intersection of culture, politics, economics and identity -- whether that's in music, art, food, literature, on stage, or on a screen. Recently, she has extensively covered high-profile legal cases for the network, including covering the trials of hip-hop tycoon Sean Combs, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and R&B superstar R. Kelly as well as Britney Spears' conservatorship. She has also uncovered backstage tumult and alleged secret deals in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations against megastar singer Plácido Domingo and reported on gender inequity issues in the music industry.

On happier days, Tsioulcas has journeyed to northern Portugal to document the rebuilding of a famed Afghan music school in exodus, cooked in the kitchen of a South Carolina Gullah Geechee matriarch, traveled to Havana to profile Cuban 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.

She was also the inaugural recipient of the Knight-Wallace Arts Journalism Fellowship, and spent the 2024-25 academic year researching and teaching at the University of Michigan. Tsioulcas currently serves as a critic at The New York Times, where she writes about classical music. She is also a former longtime judge and voting member for the Grammy Awards, where she holds credits as a record producer and album notes writer.

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 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 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 curated and 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.

Prior to joining NPR in 2011, she was widely published as a writer and critic on classical music, jazz and global 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.