publishing

By A-R Editions

Most of our readers and volume editors have probably never met Anne Miller, the production-end project manager for all of our Recent Researches series. Yet she is one of the prime movers of every volume that we publish, working closely with both house editors and engravers to supervise all aspects of typesetting, engraving, and production (and keeping us all on our toes in the process!). She sat down with us to share some insights about her job, the Recent Researches production process, its various ups and downs, and what she does outside her work at A-R.

By David C. Birchler

Performance parts are often overlooked or placed last in a list of sources. It is understandable that an extant autograph score is considered to be the primary source for a symphony, concerto, mass, or opera; or that a copyist’s score or published score, particularly one prepared under the composer’s supervision, would be chosen as primary source if the autograph is lost or presents an earlier or indeed superseded version of the work. But parts have a strength of their own in that they are specifically tailored to meeting the needs of individual players for the realization of the work in performance. Taking careful account of available source parts as you are preparing your edition will often provide details of notation that are only implied in the source score and make your job that much easier.

By Alexander Dean

The cost of each A-R edition is figured very finely, even down to hours per page, at each stage of the editing and production process, and the editions are priced as low as possible while still allowing the company to stay in business.

Our editorial department comprises Ph.D. musicologists who deal with difficult but necessary copyediting tasks: shepherding the creation of something as complex as a historical edition of music requires full-time, trained employees. The work that comes our way is high quality, presented to us by leaders in the field, representing artistic and scholarly creations that could be of lasting benefit to society, and A-R’s editorial department ensures that the editions we produce will fulfill that promise.

By David C. Birchler

In approaching a publisher with the idea of getting your work into print, it is always good to know what sorts of books that publisher specializes in. If you are a musicologist, conductor, or performer interested in creating a new edition of music that you esteem, you may already know that A-R Editions is the world leader in publishing critical editions of music heretofore found only on the shelves of libraries in manuscripts and prints that are decades or hundreds of years old. This post aims to give you some insight into what we call the “proposal stage” of our overall process in bringing music books to publication.

By Danielle Pacha

Last year I participated in a panel discussion on “Careers in Publishing,” sponsored by the Genetics Society of America. I was initially surprised when a colleague from the University of Wisconsin Press asked me to appear on the panel, as I wondered what I—a musicologist—could offer an audience of geneticists. But it turned out that I and my fellow panelists, a mix of STEM and HSS specialists, had more in common than I had expected—and much to collectively share with attendees—due to our common experiences in the world of academic publishing. This post summarizes our conversation, which touched on the state of academic publishing today and potential career paths for those interested in breaking into the field.