Dear Conductors Guild Members:

Welcome to the new all-electronic version of Podium Notes, the newsletter of the Conductors Guild!

As I wrote when I became editor, about a year ago, one of my first goals was to make Podium Notes “…more timely, useful, relevant, and user-friendly to the members of the Guild,” and to “…enhance both the content and distribution of our publications.” This new online version is the first big step in achieving those goals.

In so many ways, the new online version of Podium Notes enhances the quality of the content and ease-of-use for the reader:

Timely: In the past, Podium Notes was published quarterly (that was the plan, anyway). With our new online edition, we don’t have to wait. We can post articles, news, and reviews as they become available and ready for publication. This will make our content more current and meaningful to our readers.

Useful: Our new format will allow us to enhance our content with other media. It will now be possible to include images, sound files, and video in our posts – an image of a score, a video clip from a rehearsal, a snippet of a historical performance – NOW we’re talking interactive!

Relevant: In the past you read the article and then what? Now, you can engage your fellow readers through the comments section after each article. Our new online format allows for an open and current exchange of ideas that was not possible before.

User-friendly: Readers will now be able to sort articles by type, author, or date, search all content by keyword, access our archive, and have content delivered via RSS feed. Podium Notes, meet the 21st century!

And of course…

Accessible: No more papers to keep track of and file, or “recycle.” No more electronic .pdf files to store. Now, wherever you are, whenever you want it, all of Podium Notes is just a mouse click away.

So there you have it. It’s a brave new electronic world for the Conductors Guild in general, and Podium Notes in particular and we hope you’re as excited about it as we are.

But remember…even with all these modern bells and whistles, our newsletter is only as good as the content we publish. For that, we look to you, the members of the Conductors Guild. Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas with us. We’d like to hear from you about content you’d like to read as well as content you’d like to write. Stay in touch!

Best regards,

David Leibowitz, Editor
Podium Notes

podiumnotes@conductorsguild.org