Robin Hilton is the Senior Podcast Producer for NPR Music and hosts the New Music Friday episodes of All Songs Considered. He is also a composer and multi-instrumentalist whose original scores have appeared in podcasts, films, radio programs and other works. He arranged and performed the theme for NPR's Weekend All Things Considered and composed and performed its elections coverage theme. You can hear more of his music here.
Prior to joining NPR in 2000, Hilton co-founded Small Good Thing Productions, a non-profit production company for independent film, radio and music in Athens, Georgia.
Hilton lived and worked in Japan as an interpreter for the government, and taught English as a second language to junior high school students.
From 1989 to 1996, Hilton worked for NPR member stations KANU and WUGA as a senior producer and assistant news director and was a long-time contributing reporter to NPR's daily news programs All Things Considered and Morning Edition.
Along the way, Hilton worked as an emergency room orderly, a blackjack dealer and a fruitcake factory assembly lineman.
-
Death Cab for Cutie has a gift for making the ordinary feel breathtaking. The band splits this mostly acoustic set...
-
The 2026 Tiny Desk contest brought in thousands of entries, including several standouts in the rock and folk genres.
-
Featuring new songs and beloved classics, the stadium-sized rock band shrinks down its outsized sound without losing any urgency or...
-
One of the Tiny Desk Contest judges introduces us to finalists Les Greene and the Swayzees, a group based in...
-
The British folk-rock band shares world-weary anthems to growing older, weathering the innumerable blows of life and coming out on...
-
Few artists can completely dismantle your heart, fill it with wonder and awe at the miracle of life, and put...
-
In this new era of indie rock, yeule has become a leading voice. Their gauzy and sludgy songs are transformed...
-
NPR Music critics reflect on the lyrics that captured the year's mood, sparked emotions and stayed with them long after...
-
Rosalía's LUX is NPR Music's No. 1 album of 2025 At the moment this fall when NPR Music's staff began...
-
The All Songs Considered host had his mind blown by Rosalía's LUX and his heart broken by Patrick Watson's uh...
-
Send us a voice memo about a song that hit you hard in 2025 — one you listened to on...
-
In matching, brilliant blue suits, David Byrne and his band squeeze behind the Desk to perform four songs, including Talking...