The Chicago Symphony Orchestra announced its 2008-2009 season today. The overarching theme of “Echoes of Nations” is really close to my heart. Ever since I wrote an essay on the question of “what is a nation?” for a scholarship contest on textbookx.com, I’ve been enormously interested in the subject of nations and nationalism. It didn’t win any prizes, but it changed my entire historical and philosophical outlook. Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities still ranks high among the books that have had the most influence on my view of the world. But more on this later.

Coinciding with the season announcement, the CSO has launched a new online press room. I am proud to say that I have spearheaded the development of this press room. Although it is not a full Web 2.0 extravaganza, I did try to incorporate new media details: social bookmarking, encouraging bloggers to use our images and link back to the site and putting a heavy emphasis on the RSS feeds. Also, in the season announcement section there are downloadable audio commentaries from guest artists and staff.

I am curious to see how the press room will develop and I am excited to think about new features to add in the future. Now, I would like to encourage the readers of this blog to visit the press room at www.cso.org/press and let me know about their experiences. Browse around and if you have any comments, questions or ideas on improving the features, please let me know in the comment section below or send me an e-mail at dutchperspective (at) mcmvanbree.com. Any and all comments are much appreciated.

Tags: arts management, classical music

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 3:09 pm and is filed under New Media, Public Relations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.