Editor | Brian T. Majeski (born 1956) |
---|---|
Former editors | John Francis Majeski, Jr. (1921–2011) |
Frequency | Monthly |
Format | Print Digital Mobile device |
Publisher | Paul Anton Majeski (born 1960) |
Founder | John Christian Freund (1848–1924) Milton Weil |
Year founded | 1890 (126 years old) |
First issue | January 3, 1891 |
Company | The Music Trades Corporation |
Country | United States |
Based in | Englewood, New Jersey |
Language | English |
Website |
www www |
ISSN | 0027-4488 |
OCLC number | 60615892 |
The Music Trades is a 126-year-old American trade magazine that covers a broad spectrum of music and music commerce, domestically and abroad. The magazine was founded in New York City in 1890 and, since the mid-1970s, has been based in Englewood, New Jersey. The Music Trades is one of the longest-running, without interruption, trade publications in the world. The June 2017 issue — Vol. 165, No. 5 — is approximately the three thousand and fiftieth issue. A controlling ownership over the last 87 years — sixty-nine percent of the publication's total age — has been held by three generations of the Majeski family, making it among the few current publications of any ilk that has been closely held by a single family for as long a period.
The Music Trades was founded in 1890 by John Christian Freund (1848–1924) and Milton Weil (1871–1935). Freund and Weil also, in 1898, founded Musical America, the oldest American magazine on classical music.
Freund, who matriculated in 1868 at Exeter College, Oxford but left after three years without a degree, had first been a playwright and actor. Freund emigrated to New York in 1871. In 1875, he founded The Music Trade Review, a fortnightly publication that he later renamed The Musical and Dramatic Times and Music Trade Review. The publication ran for about 2 years. In 1878, Freund founded the Musical Times, which soon changed to Musical and Dramatic Times. On January 7, 1882, Freund launched a weekly magazine, Music: A Review (Vol., No. 1), which contained an insert called The Music Trade. Sometime on or before July 8, 1882, Freund changed the name to Music and Drama, supplemented by Freund's Daily Music and Drama. Music and Drama evolved into the weekly publication, The Music Trades.
In 1884, Freund, with John Travis Quigg (1839–1893), founded The American Musician, which ran until 1891 and became the official publication of the National League of Musicians, the forerunner of the American Federation of Musicians. Before founding the American Musician, Henry Cood Watson (1818–1875) began in 1864 the publication Watson's Art Journal, devoted to music criticism and trade. Watson died in 1875 and his Journal was taken over by his pupil, William M. Thoms, who improved it, renamed it American Art Journal, edited it until his retirement in 1906, then, upon his retirement, merged it with the American Musician.