NewMusicBox Celebrates Its First Anniversary on the Web

On May 1, 2000, NewMusicBox, the ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award-winning monthly Web magazine from the American Music Center, celebrates its first anniversary with the launch of its 13th issue. NewMusicBox, which last month attracted over 20,000 user sessions, yielding over 400,000 hits, was recently singled out by the San Francisco Chronicle as "The Web's smartest and snazziest resource for news, features, reviews and interviews on contemporary classical music" by Chief Music Critic Joshua Kosman. This commendation follows a series of acknowledgements of this pioneering site for new American music both within and beyond the music industry. In December 1999, NewMusicBox was awarded ASCAP's prestigious Deems Taylor Award, the first-ever for a Web endeavor. ASCAP described NewMusicBox as a "landmark interactive resource." In January 2000, the American Symphony Orchestra League's Symphony Magazine and Chamber Music Magazine, the official publication of Chamber Music America, both featured NewMusicBox in round-ups of the best performing arts sites on the Web. Symphony described NewMusicBox as "thought-provoking," while Chamber Music praised the site's "interesting, interactive forums." Earlier this year, the Christian Science Monitor also recommended NewMusicBox for people eager to learn more about contemporary music and the Internet Cool Guide chose NewMusicBox as one of the Best Entertainment Sites.

In the 13 issues of NewMusicBox to date (the contents of which are all archived on the site), there have been 13 in-depth interviews and HyperHistories thus far as well as over 90 news items. There have been over 250 posts to date in NewMusicBox's interactive forums. Over 1000 concerts around the country have been listed in a national calendar for American music (which earlier this year became a searchable database), and over 300 CDs have been covered in SoundTracks featuring the music of over 500 American composers, each with a RealAudio sample and an offsite purchasing link. In total, there are nearly 1000 RealAudio music samples scattered throughout the site. In April 2000, QuickTime Video samples were introduced to NewMusicBox interviews.