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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The opera star, who has been accused by 20 women, was scheduled to perform Verdi's Macbethstarting on Wednesday night. In an email, he told Met staffers that he will never perform there again. -
In The Americans, a book of photos taken while road-tripping across the country in the 1950s, his portrait of the United States was dark, grainy and free from nostalgia. He died on Monday night. -
The song was everywhere during the 1967 gatherings in San Francisco. After it was used in a public service announcement, it became an anthem for the rest of the world. -
John Abercrombie helped define the sound of jazz guitar: from jazz-rock fusion to funky organ combos to the distinctive less-is-more sound he created on dozens of albums for the ECM label.
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Shot outside an arena in suburban Maryland hosting a Judas Priest and Dokken double bill, the short documentary captured something vital about its moment in music history. -
The great bluesman was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and toured relentlessly his whole life, wringing peerless emotion out of every note he played. -
Renbourn co-founded the popular folk/jazz group Pentangle and was one of the most respected and influential acoustic guitarists in the world. He died this week at his home in Scotland; he was 70. -
The guitarist said he didn't "really have all that much technique anyway," but it was clearly enough to influence half a century of jazz musicians. Peers and proteges like Sonny Rollins, Julian Lage and John Scofield reflect on one of the finest ever on his instrument. -
Richie Havens had a long career as a musician, but he's still most famous for one set he played to hundreds of thousands in New York in 1969. -
It's not easy, even for audio recorded in the last 10 years. The Library of Congress has released a plan for preserving the country's long but fragile archive of recorded audio.
