Community
8:24 am
Tue May 21, 2013

Community Impact: Orleans Place Matters Using Data For Neighborhood Advocacy

From crime and jobs to education and local history, a new program is analyzing how factors in our neighborhoods and closest to home impact life in New Orleans, and it's giving residents the data they need to petition for positive change.

Read more
Environment
7:00 am
Tue May 21, 2013

Louisiana Wetlands Experts Exchanging Ideas At Vietnam Conference

Members of the America’s Wetland Foundation are in Vietnam this week to collaborate on river management. Dutch experts are also participating.

Read more
Music
4:20 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

Professional Street Musicians Undaunted By Second-Line Shooting

Credit Maureen McMurray / WWNO
The TBC Brass Band performing during a second-line parade this past weekend.

The Mother’s Day shootings, which injured 20, rattled residents of New Orleans and led some to question the security around second-line parades. For many, the prevailing tradition brought them out to yesterday’s Divine Ladies Parade, but for the professional musicians who participate in the parades it was also a matter of their livelihood.

“This is how I eat. This is how I feed my family. Without this, I have to go look for another job. I never worked a day in my life. I play music all the time,” says Chris Terro, a percussionist with the TBC Brass Band.

Read more
The Louisiana Coast: Last Call
1:32 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

Live Chat Tuesday: Talk To Bob Marshall About Challenges Facing Coastal Louisiana

Last week, we began a series on the crisis facing the Louisiana coast, reported by The Lens’ Bob Marshall and produced by our own Fred Kasten. The stories lay out the causes of Louisiana’s coastal loss and what can be done to reverse it.

Tuesday at 1 p.m., Marshall will participate in a live chat about whether there’s hope for the coast. Is it too late to reverse the accelerating loss of land? Should we spend $50 billion in restoration projects?

Read more

Anastasia Tsioulcas is an Associate Producer for NPR Music. In this role she is responsible for producing, blogging and occasional reporting on classical and world music.

Tsioulcas is co-host of NPR's classical music blog, Deceptive Cadence, and also produces live concert webcasts, ranging from Member Station co-productions to other live concerts and special events, including Field Recordings and Tiny Desk Concerts, that she's helped curate and produce.

While here at NPR, Tsioulcas has produced, coordinated and reported on a variety of topics and initiatives including rallying a few hundred singers to Times Square for a "flash choir" to sing the world premiere of a new Philip Glass piece, commissioned by NPR Music. Tsioulcas also had the opportunity to speak with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steve Reich about his piece WTC 9/11 and she produced and co-hosted a live concert at (Le) Poisson Rouge with legendary conductor Daniel Barenboim and his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, comprised of players from Israel and across the Arab world.

Prior to joining NPR in April 2011, she was widely published as a writer on both classical and world music, and was the former North America editor for Gramophone Magazine and the classical music columnist for Billboard. She has also been an on-air contributor to many public radio programs, including WNYC's Soundcheck, Minnesota Public Radio's The Savvy Traveler, Public Radio International's Weekend America, and the BBC's The World. As a world music journalist, she has reported from across north and western Africa, South Asia and Europe on the music and culture of those regions.

Born in Boston, Tsioulcas was trained from an early age as a Western classical violinist and violist. She holds a BA from Barnard College, Columbia University in comparative religion.

Out To Lunch
1:07 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

The NOLA Brain Gain

Credit Grant Morris / It's New Orleans
Chris Boyd, Peter Ricchiuti and Marianne Rodriguez.

The New Orleans business boom is not a coincidence, it's a campaign. NOLAbound successfully recruited young entrepreneurs to New Orleans.

Meet two of them on this week's Out to Lunch: Chris Boyd, founder of mobile app building company Apptitude, and Marianne Rodriguez, founder of fashion illustration studio MarketteNOLA.

Read more
Community
11:13 am
Mon May 20, 2013

Second-Line Parades Continue In Defiance Of Last Week's Violence

As the New Orleans Police Department continues to investigate the motives behind last week’s Mother’s Day parade shooting, the city’s Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs are sticking to their second-line schedules.

Read more
State Legislature
8:30 am
Mon May 20, 2013

State Legislature Continues Its Session This Week

Credit Stuart Seeger / Flickr
The Louisiana State Capitol building.

The Louisiana state legislature continues its session this week. Kelly Connelly from our partner WRKF brings us this update from Baton Rouge.

On Friday the Senate Finance Committee continued to comb through the budget, and discovered there’s a lot left to fund this session.

To get a summary, Senator Fred Mills asked Legislative Fiscal Officer John Carpenter to detail the five top worries that keep him up at night.

His first answer:

“That I won’t have a job after the session is over.”

Read more
The Louisiana Coast: Last Call
7:45 am
Mon May 20, 2013

The Louisiana Coast: Last Call — River Diversions

Credit NASA Earth Observatory
The Davis Pond Freshwater Diversion Structure in 1999 and 2003. The structure part of a project that is attempting to reverse land loss and ecosystem degradation in the marshlands.

It’s almost impossible to find anyone in coastal Louisiana opposed to the idea of “coastal restoration.” Storms like Katrina, Gustav and Isaac have shown everyone the value of the marshes and swamps that once stood between them and the Gulf.

But when “restore” means turning things back to the way they once were, problems can arise.

The best-known example of that is the conflict over using river diversions.

Read more
Faith
7:00 am
Mon May 20, 2013

Dalai Lama Brings Timely Message To New Orleans

Credit Thomas Walsh / WWNO
The Dalai Lama, at a press conference in New Orleans last week.

The Dalai Lama reflects on the world's problems.

The Dalai Lama has wrapped up his first visit to New Orleans. He brought a message of peace and compassion.

Read more

Pages