Elizabeth Blair
Elizabeth Blair is a Peabody Award-winning senior producer/reporter on the Arts Desk of NPR News.
Blair produces, edits, and reports arts and cultural segments for NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition. In this position, she has reported on a range of topics from arts funding to the MeToo movement. She has profiled renowned artists such as Yayoi Kusama and Mikhail Baryshnikov, explored how old women are represented in fairy tales, and reported the origins of the children's classic Curious George. Among her all-time favorite interviews are actors Octavia Spencer and Andy Serkis, comedians Bill Burr and Hari Kondabolu, the rapper K'Naan, and Cookie Monster (in character).
Blair has overseen several, large-scale series including The NPR 100, which explored landmark musical works of the 20th Century, and In Character, which probed the origins of iconic American fictional characters. Along with her colleagues on the Arts Desk and at NPR Music, Blair curated American Anthem, a major series exploring the origins of songs that uplift, rouse, and unite people around a common theme.
Blair's work has received several honors, including two Peabody Awards and a Gracie. She previously lived in Paris, France, where she co-produced Le Jazz Club From Paris with Dee Dee Bridgewater, and the monthly magazine Postcard From Paris.
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On Oct. 16, 1923, Margaret Winkler agreed to produce and distribute "Alice Comedies," a new series by Walt Disney, at the time a struggling cartoonist in Kansas City. That contract is considered the founding document of The Walt Disney Company.
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The songwriter and singer, who cemented his prominence with hits like "Say A Little Prayer" and "Walk on By," died Wednesday of natural causes. Bacharach was born in Kansas City in 1928.
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The composer has been lauded for decades over his deeply affective music; director Alejandro González Iñárritu, composer Hildur Guðnadóttir and more join us to explain why.
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Vogt died "surrounded by his family after a battle with cancer," according to a statement from his representatives.
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Emmy Award-winning composer Stephen Lawrence, who co-wrote songs for Sesame Street and Free to Be... You and Me, died on December 30 at age 82.
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Children's media experts recommend their favorite new books, TV shows and video games with characters and storylines representing the diversity of the U.S.
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As health officials sound the alarm about the pandemic's impact on children's mental health, music, drama and other art classes are helping kids adjust to being in-person again.
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After weeks of trying to flee Afghanistan, 101 musicians, students and teachers with the Afghanistan National Institute of Music and Zohra Orchestra finally landed in Doha, Qatar on Sunday.
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The grant, thought to be the largest-ever from a philanthropic institution for poetry, will enable the academy to fund its Poets Laureate Fellowship program for the next three years.
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Lehrer chronicled such weighty events as John F. Kennedy's assassination and the 1973 Senate Watergate hearings. For years, he and lifelong friend Robert MacNeil co-anchored The MacNeil/Lehrer Report.