Music Publisher Sites - Part 1

Recently I have been on Music publishing sites a lot more than usual. Firstly a interview for Edinburgh Studio Opera (more on that in a minute), and then a upcoming audition/interview for a job for next year have meant I've been on something of a music website binge.

Firstly I think, and indeed have always thought Boosey (and Hawkes) have one of the best websites around. Everything is very clear and well laid out whilst everything is very easy to find out, especially orchestration and information (on a sideline from this can someone please set up a website combining all of this information, putting it all in one place. A bit ambitious yes, but definitely worth it).

Universal Edition is promising at first, the front page http://www.universaledition.com/london/ looks good, and well laid out. However as soon as one tries to access any more information things get tricky. It quickly reverts back to the German site, meaning most titles are in German (which is annoying) and set out in a list with out categorisation, which means if your trying to find a different version of a piece you have to trawl through until you find it, which is time consuming.

As Iain McLarty (http://iainmclarty.blogspot.com/) has recently said Schirmer have recently created a ondemand perusal service, which is a really good idea one in which other companies should use. Their site is also good, though (annoyingly) slightly less well laid out than Boosey one

I plan to continue this later, but for now onto good news. I am going to be appearing in the Fringe as Assistant MD/Piano Player for Edinburgh Studio Opera. We are doing a fully staged performance of Carmina Burana, which sounds really cool! My term as Assistant MD continues into the main production next Feb which is the Dove reduction of Janacek's Cunning Little Vixen. I'm really excited about these two productions, and working with the new MD, and getting to play a lot of Piano in CB and Trombone in CLV.