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Over the past six years, nearly 30,000 musicians have entered NPR's annual Tiny Desk Contest in the hopes of being chosen to perform as part of NPR Music's signature music discovery series. Now, NPR is once again calling for bands and musicians to submit a video. Contest winners have gone on to tour the world, sign with major labels, open for legendary performers and even receive Grammy awards.

The opportunity to make your dream to perform at the iconic Tiny Desk come true is here: NPR wants to hear from you! The Tiny Desk Contest is back and it will be more fun than ever before with brand-new virtual events including the Tiny Desk Contest Family Hour, a Tiny Desk Trivia Night and the return of the Tiny Desk Contest Top Shelf video series.

Music 101 is part music/part history lesson with your teacher and host Margot Chobanian . Every week, she highlights a different chapter in music history, bringing you songs you love and the stories behind them. Music 101 explores how music and history both affect one another, while highlighting topics like The Wrecking Crew, banned and censored songs, the Civil Rights Movement, CBGB’s, the Hammond organ in rock — and much more.  “I have so much fun putting together Music 101! Context creates a deeper connection to the music.

Black Radio: Telling It Like It Was is the story of radio’s role in the 20th century transformation of the African American community. First aired in 1996, the specials have been reformatted into six hours for 2021. Original host Lou Rawls guides us, with new narration from original producer Jacquie Gales Webb.

Black Radio: Telling It Like It Was is the story of radio’s role in the 20th century transformation of the African American community. First aired in 1996, the specials have been reformatted into six hours for 2021. Original host Lou Rawls guides us, with new narration from original producer Jacquie Gales Webb.

Black Radio: Telling It Like It Was is the story of radio’s role in the 20th century transformation of the African American community. First aired in 1996, the specials have been reformatted into six hours for 2021. Original host Lou Rawls guides us, with new narration from original producer Jacquie Gales Webb. Through interviews, historical airchecks, comedy, drama, and music, the series reveals the remarkable correlation between milestones of Black radio programming and African American culture.

Kanaval: Haitian Rhythms & the Music of New Orleans is a three hour documentary hosted by Haitian-American and New Orleans based artist and musician, Leyla McCalla, a founding member of Our Native Daughters & alumna of the GRAMMY award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops. Leyla’s work unearthing history and musical tradition, combined with her knowledge of cultural hybridization and her own identity as a Haitian-American have given her a unique voice and perspective.

Kanaval: Haitian Rhythms & the Music of New Orleans is a three hour documentary hosted by Haitian-American and New Orleans based artist and musician, Leyla McCalla, a founding member of Our Native Daughters & alumna of the GRAMMY award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops. Leyla’s work unearthing history and musical tradition, combined with her knowledge of cultural hybridization and her own identity as a Haitian-American have given her a unique voice and perspective.

Acoustic Café is a two hour weekly radio show, produced and hosted by Rob Reinhart, who started the show in 1995. It airs each week on WRUR, now at it's new Sunday morning time of 6 AM. It repeats Sunday evening at 6PM.

We have some new weekend shows and shows moved times recently, so we thought to put the changes in a quick note. As always, you can check out the current schedule at https://www.wrur.org/schedule.