Joni Deutsch
On-Demand Content & Audience Engagement Manager, Host of the Amplifier Podcast
Joni Deutsch was WFAE's manager for on-demand content and audience engagement, where she's led the first Charlotte Podcast Festival (named one of the “best podcast conferences” by Buzzsprout) and helped produce such podcasts as FAQ City, SouthBound, Inside Politics, Work It and the Apple Podcast chart-topping series She Says. In addition to being an NPR Music contributor, Joni also was the host of WFAE’s Charlotte music podcast Amplifier, named “Best Podcast” by Charlotte Magazine and honored for excellence in arts and music podcasting by the local Edward R. Murrow Awards and The Webby Awards (called “The Internet’s Highest Honor” by The New York Times).
Joni has been working in public radio and podcasting for a decade, starting with her work as music director and assistant general manager of WLUR 91.5FM in Lexington, Virginia, and continuing at West Virginia Public Broadcasting (West Virginia’s NPR station) as the creator and host of the weekly music program A Change of Tune and the critically-acclaimed 30 Days of #WVmusic interview series. While in West Virginia, Joni became assistant producer for NPR Music’s legacy public radio music program Mountain Stage, as well as the program’s youngest (and first female) guest host in the show’s 32 years, making her the youngest host of a nationally-syndicated public radio program (heard on more than 270 radio stations) at the age of 24.
Joni’s strong communication skills and creative marketing style have led to national features by NPR, Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Poynter, as well as local spotlights from CharlotteFive, the Charlotte Agenda, Creative Mornings/Charlotte, The Gantt Center, The Blumenthal Performing Arts, Discovery Museum and the Carolina School of Broadcasting.
A supporter of innovative media and a mentor to digital women leaders, Joni has been recognized as an Emerging Voice Scholar by the Alliance for Women in Media, the West Virginia State Journal’s “40 under 40,” the Online News Association's Women's Leadership Accelerator, the Charlotte Agenda's "30 under 30,” The United Way of Central Carolina’s Young Leader Awards, Duke University TiP’s Early Achievement Award and Gracie Awards.
Joni earned her Bachelor's from West Virginia University and Master of Arts in Strategic Communication from American University.She can be found on social media @achangeoftune on Twitter and Instagram.
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It’s been nearly a month since COVID-19 shut down Charlotte in practically every way imaginable. For the local music scene, that means venues of all shapes and sizes closing their doors and hundreds of concerts being canceled or postponed until the coronavirus outbreak comes to an end.But that hasn’t put a stopper on Charlotte’s creativity: singer-songwriter Brit Drozda has created a digital stage to help benefit local music venues as part of the “Charlotte Music Challenge.”This week on Amplifier, we revisit our 2018 interview with Brit Drozda and our conversation about staying inspired (through food and music), being connected and not taking anything for granted. -
Stay in. Sing out. Support local music from the comfort of home with Songversations, a new video series from WFAE's Amplifier.Part performance, part… -
Stay in. Sing out. Support local music from the comfort of home with Songversations, a new video series from WFAE's Amplifier.Part performance, part… -
Since Amplifier debuted in 2018, we’ve had the pleasure of featuring a wide variety of rock artists on this podcast: alt rock, indie rock, psych rock, punk rock, pop rock. But today's episode marks a first with Charlotte-based math rock band Cuzco, hailed by Volume Magazine as "a world of odd time signatures, not-so-typical rhythmic structures and mind-bending melodies.” -
As COVID-19 — the disease caused by the coronavirus — continues to persist, the music community is finding ways to stay afloat.With the cancellation of… -
In 2018, Charlotte soul artist MercuryCarter was invited to perform at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. Beyond the opportunity to sing at the second-largest jazz festival in the world, Mercury's appearance was made even more notable by the simple fact of his being the third North Carolina vocalist to have performed at the festival (following Nina Simone and Roberta Flack). And to think: the rising Charlotte artist began his artistic career not as a neo-jazz singer, but as a sewing fashion prodigy. -
For the past five years, singer-songwriter Jim Sharkey has taken the 200-year-old lilt of traditional Irish folk music and placed it in a 21st-century context (with contemporary references to Facebook, Whitney Houston and even the 2019 Women’s World Cup). On his 2019 full-length release "A Lovely Day," Sharkey sings to the theme of home: of finding home, of feeling at home with loved ones, of the nostalgia of remembering his home in Ireland and of making a new one here in North Carolina. -
“A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots,” said civil rights leader Marcus Mosiah Garvey, a thought that could just as easily apply to the history (or lack thereof) of music.Look at the iconization of Elvis Presley, which rarely mentions the influence of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, or chart-topping Bruno Mars who learned how to bust a move from soul forefathers like James Brown. For Tyrone Jefferson and Toni Tupponce, A Sign of the Times’ legacy is to share these oft-forgotten stories of black history through music, dance and spoken word. -
Since 1994, tens of thousands of musicians have trekked to the “music oasis” that is The Playroom, the 22,000 square foot facility that is Charlotte’s oldest and largest music production space. On any given day, you can find more than 100 musicians working out of the facility, with talent ranging from up-and-coming Charlotte acts to Grammy Award winners like Usher and Fantasia. At the heart of The Playroom is facility owner and music producer Eddie Z and his goal to create a comfortable “home-away-from-home” for musicians near and far. -
Modern Moxie is a kaleidoscope of musical genres and generational styles, taking dance-happy cues from The Cars and David Bowie and bringing them to a contemporary pop-rock stage. On the heels of their 2019 debut full-length “Claw Your Way Out” and their recognition as “Charlotte’s Best Band” by Queen City Nerve, Modern Moxie bandmates Madison Lucas and Harry Kollm share how the Charlotte band’s success can be traced all the way back to a small dorm room closet in South Carolina.
