Anya Grundmann Is Reinventing Public Radio For A Post-Radio Generation | Fast Company

BY ADAM BLUESTEIN | 06-08-2012 - Excerpt
'iPad apps and tiny desk concerts are just part of the big vision for the chief of NPR Music.
If you've recently streamed an NPR Music program online, downloaded a podcast, or watched a concert on your iPad, you have Anya Grundmann to thank. Charged with creating a multiplatform experience to encompass and build upon the music programming produced by NPR and its local public-radio affiliate stations, Grundmann has encouraged both artistic and technological experimentation. As a result, while commercial radio has become ever more consolidated and conservative, NPR Music has become ever more eclectic and innovative, broadening its offerings and its audience: Every month more than 2 million people visit NPR Music online and on mobile devices, in addition to the millions more who tune into local stations. Here, Grundmann talks about the importance of an open mind--and a growing team of creative multi-taskers--in confronting a media landscape in flux.
FAST COMPANY: How did you get started in public radio?
ANYA GRUNDMANN: I was an English major in college and graduated during the last recession when there were not a lot of opportunities out there for a liberal arts person. After school, I moved to Flagstaff with friends, where I taught music in elementary school and gave private piano lessons. I was also taking graduate classes and studying piano at Northern Arizona University, and the local NPR station, KNAU, was housed in the music building there. I volunteered, and they asked me to cover a press conference at the Indian reservation on my first day. Yikes! In the summer of 1994, I came to D.C. as an intern at NPR in the cultural programming division. I left NPR for a while after that, but came back again....'






