Tom Cole
Tom Cole is a senior editor on NPR's Arts Desk. He develops, edits, produces, and reports on stories about art, culture, music, film, and theater for NPR's news magazines Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, and All Things Considered. Cole has held these responsibilities since February 1990.
Prior to his work with the Arts Desk, Cole worked for three and a half years as an associate producer for NPR's daily classical music program Performance Today, and also for Morning Edition, where he coordinated, edited, and produced arts and culture stories.
From April 1979 to July 1986, Cole worked for NPR Member station WAMU-FM in Washington, DC. He was the production manager for the daily operation of studios, and also served as a reporter, writing and producing music features that were broadcast locally and nationally. In addition, from October 1985 to November 1986, Cole worked for Voice of America as a producer for VOA Europe.
Since 1977, Cole has been the host and producer of a weekly three-hour program of music and interviews broadcast on public radio station WPFW-FM in Washington.
Over the course of his career, Cole has produced or collaborated on a number of public radio projects. He co-edited the Peabody Award-winning NPR documentary, "I Must Keep Fightin': The Art of Paul Robeson." He was also an advisor, contributor, and co-editor of the Peabody Award-winning series, "The NPR 100," the top 100 songs of the 20th century.
A native of Washington, DC, Cole has studied classical guitar at The American University and privately. He also studied comparative literature at Catholic University in Washington, DC, and at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa.
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In 2008, NPR's Tom Cole was assigned to profile Elliott Carter for the composer's centennial. Cole was terrified. He needn't have been. To mark Carter's passing this past Monday at the age of 103, Cole has a remembrance of what it was like to meet the storied composer.
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The composer, who was born in 1908 and won two Pulitzer Prizes for music that could be challenging and adventurously modern, died in New York.
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Janet Feder has built a career on unusual instrumental guitar playing. Her new album, Songs With Words, is the first to feature her singing — a bold choice that may alienate her old fans. -
The seminal Scottish folk guitarist, singer, and composer passed early Wednesday morning after a battle with lung cancer. -
Sandy Denny became the queen of British folk rock when she joined the band Fairport Convention in 1968. Her fans included Robert Plant and Nina Simone. Denny was a skilled songwriter with a powerful and expressive voice, yet today many people don't recognize her name. -
In 1959, Robert Frank's The Americans dramatically altered how photographers looked through viewfinders and how Americans saw themselves. -
He was born in 1908, the year Henry Ford introduced the Model T. At age 100, Elliott Carter is still composing music. Today, he continues to amaze, and occasionally confound, his fans and critics. -
Music has played an important role in the Gulf region and the Mississippi delta, often elaborating on stories of natural and man-made disasters. The music has borne testament to upheaval over the centuries.
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It's time for an end-of-summer poetry treat: NPR's Tom Cole reads "Blackberry Picking," from Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, found in Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996.
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Influential jazz saxophonist Steve Lacy died Friday of cancer at age 69, ending a career that was noticed by both John Coltrane and the MacArthur Genius Awards. Hear NPR's Tom Cole.
