As Vice President for Programming and Audience Development, Anya Grundmann leads NPR's programming center to create and acquire the highest quality content offerings that will engage and grow public radio's audience on Member stations across the country, and inspire new levels of engagement with audiences on digital platforms.
She leads NPR's program acquisition, evaluation, and development. This includes managing NPR's acquired programs (including Car Talk, Fresh Air, and Snap Judgment), creating new programming for NPR and Member stations, and overseeing NPR's weekly quiz show Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Additionally, she manages NPR's Worldwide Service and the network's channel on Sirius XM Satellite Radio.
Previously Grundmann served as the Executive Director of NPR Music, a premiere award-winning source for music discovery and innovative multiplatform journalism, in close partnership with leading public radio stations and major NPR news programs. In 2013, Billboard named her as one of the "Power 100" in the music industry, and Fast Company noted that Anya and her team are "re-inventing public radio for the post-radio generation."
Every month more than 4 million people visit NPR Music online and via mobile devices, including the NPR Music ipad and iphone apps and video channels, millions more hear national music programs and tens of millions hear music coverage on NPR's flagship news programs.
Popular NPR Music features and podcasts include All Songs Considered, First Listens, Tiny Desk Concerts, Heavy Rotation and Songs We Love from DJs across public radio, Alt.Latino, Microphone Check from NPR Hip-Hop, I'll Take You There from NPR&B, NPR Classical, Jazz Night in America with WBGO and Jazz at Lincoln Center, major festival coverage, exclusive videos, live concerts and music news.
National music radio programs include World Café, Jazz Night in America, Mountain Stage, Thistle and Shamrock, From the Top, Song Travels and Piano Jazz.
Before the launch of NPR Music, Grundmann was Executive Producer of the NPR Music Unit, producing the national classical programs Performance Today, Symphony Cast and World of Opera.
She began her career at NPR as Associate Editor and then Supervising Editor of Performance Today, winning a coveted Peabody Award. As a Special Projects producer for NPR, she produced the series Creators at Carnegie, a multi-genre concert series from Carnegie Hall, featuring musicians from Brian Wilson, to Audra McDonald, Richard Goode and Youssou N'Dour.
In 2013, Grundmann was a Fellow in the Sulzberger Leadership program at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. In 2002-2003, she was a Fellow in the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University. For seven years, she co-Directed the NEA Institute for Classical Music and Opera writers, a professional development program for mid-career arts journalists.
She serves on the board of Dumbarton Concerts in Washington, D.C.
Photo Credit: Susan Hale Thomas/NPR
