by Mary Anne Rees

$35.00.  CMS Member Price: $25.00

The celebration of The College Music Society’s fifty years of service to music and higher education (1958-2008) concluded with release of CMS—The First Fifty Years by Mary Anne Rees. Dr. Rees has provided a most readable and entertaining history of the Society, and placed the organization in the context of its time, from its post-World War II inception to the present day. Six chapters and two interludes address the Society’s formation, development, and major milestones, while a highlights section provides an overview of the challenges faced each year from 1958 forward. Thirteen appendices review various CMS initiatives, and a useful index aids in locating key persons and details. Published for the first time, the official CMS Fiftieth-Anniversary Song by John Buccheri and Tony Rauche is also included.

One cannot always tell a book by its cover but in this case we can! The attractive gold cover stock with gold foil stamping pays subtle homage to the Society’s premiere journal, College Music Symposium, a publication that has enriched the field of music for five decades.

The Society’s hearty congratulations are extended to Mary Anne Rees for her tireless efforts in bringing this project to fruition. Dr. Rees visited the Society’s archives at the University of Maryland and consulted historical documents in repositories in various locations. Dr. Rees’s devotion to scholarly research and her thoroughness in finding archival documents to support her writing has resulted in a well-documented and well-researched text paying the highest scholarly tribute to the Society. Congratulations to Dr. Rees for this remarkable achievement!

200 pages, paperback