NPR music reporter Anastasia Tsioulcas spent time in Athens this week speaking to UGA students and others after an invite from the Franklin School of Music.
She began her career in music as a classical violinist and violist traveling the world performing. Tsioulcas also brought practical advice to students in the Music in the Real World classes hoping to make a living in the industry.
“You have to kind of create your own reality, you create your own adventure and that gives people a lot of scope to start their own projects, to start their own work, to do things that are interdisciplinary,” according to Tsioulcas
While she says the current environment presents opportunities, there are also challenges.
“But at the same time, a lot of the onus and responsibility is on them to do something that students of generations ago may not have thought of.”
Tsioulcas has covered a variety of wide-ranging topics. Everything from Aretha Franklin’s funeral, to profiles of those in the industry, to producing episodes for the successful Tiny Desk concert series. Recently she’s covered the #metoo movement and allegations concerning Opera star Placido Domingo.
“A number of employees came forward to me, members of the orchestra, chorus, other employees, came forward to me anonymously and said there was a whisper network about him, Domingo, I mean, at the Metropolitan Opera as well. They weren’t happy with the way that management had dealt with this.”
Tsioulcas reported what she discovered.
“And so I published a couple stories back-to-back about the internal situation at the Met and quite suddenly the Met made the announcement that they and Domingo were going to be parting ways.”
Anastasia Tsioulcas is based in New York.
