And please add comments to the article about what you think about the music. This is an exercise in music criticism as much as it is about musical democracy.

Each week we aim to bring you similar-style CD reviews, featuring recent professional-quality releases that range from the smallest independent labels and self-produced efforts of local musicians to the biggest international names from the major labels. You’ll find the reviews in the left column of the Web site each week along with the concert reviews, and under the CD category in the Reviews tab at the top of the page.

If you’re interested in having your CD reviewed, please let us know at editor@sfcv.org. (If we’re interested, we’ll let you know where to mail a CD.) Because we’re aiming to review CDs in a new way, with full musical examples to illustrate the specific sections under discussion rather than abbreviated excerpts, full-length tracks or albums must be available to the public for sampling in some form online, a growing trend through such legal services as Free Napster, Magnatune, and performers’ own Web sites. Wherever possible, we will also direct listeners through a link on the album title to a place they can purchase the music they hear in CD or download form, so that musicians and labels can be fairly compensated for their efforts and music lovers can listen to the music they love whenever and however they like.

We hope you enjoy the experience!

— Mickey Butts, Executive Director and Editor, SFCV

We’ve expanded the ad positions we offer on our homepage to meet the growing demand from advertisers (see our sample page). For instance, we can now accommodate multiple advertisers at the same time in the popular top banner position. And you can run ads on the exact dates that correspond to your marketing campaign or performance schedule, regardless of our weekly publishing schedule.

For more information about how SFCV can help your organization reach new audiences, the new pricing schedule, a list of advertisers, and other details please visit the advertising page of our site.

With the change of names, we’re making room for new SFCV e-mail newsletters on the horizon. This week, we’re pleased to announce the latest addition, Listening Ahead, our critics’ choices of the best Bay Area events over the coming two weeks. It’s published on Tuesdays, as well, and is a handy way to make last-minute plans for classical music events to attend. You’ll need to subscribe separately to receive this free newsletter.

In the future, look for other newsletters as we gauge demand. Be sure to stop by our newsletter Subscription Page to subscribe to The Week in Classical Music and Listening Ahead, to sign up to be updated if we launch other newsletters on a wide range of topics for which we’re testing demand, or to change the details of your existing subscriptions, such as a change of e-mail address. The simplest way to sign up for any of these newsletters is by entering your e-mail address at the Subscription Page, or on the signup box in the top left of the homepage. (To change an e-mail address, enter your old address and then the new address on the subsequent page.)

As we review SFCV’s performance over the past year and plan improvements for the next, we recall with deep appreciation the support of the many friends who have made this pioneering publication possible. You who have invested in this project have helped shape the way the classical music community is informed and engaged. Together we have achieved a level of coverage that is unrivaled in its variety and comprehensiveness.

Now in preparation for the new year, we aim to expand our service and our readership so that SFCV becomes more independent and secure. We invite you to travel along this road with us as a partner, as an investor, and as someone who believes in our mission. We need you to sustain us and help us grow.

Thanks to members’ past support, we’ve launched a completely redesigned site with an eye-pleasing look, multiple ways to organize and receive articles, conversations among concertgoers, music resources, and more. These changes are only the beginning! Over the coming year, we plan to offer a dynamic calendar that connects audiences with compelling information about all the live concerts in the Bay Area. We also plan to provide expanded community connections, resources, and coverage. In addition to being a critical resource for the area’s most devoted concertgoers, we want to draw a much broader audience of music fans into our community.

To sustain what SFCV has built so far and to enable us to bring an improved service to more people than ever before, we need your support. As we approach the end of the year, I hope that you will join, or renew your membership in, the Friends of SFCV and help us make this great leap forward. Our goal is to raise $20,000 by December 31 to help fund the first phase of this project!

I encourage you to give at one of our membership levels of $40, $100, $250, or more to support our growth. As a token of our thanks, you will receive discounts from leading presenters. Since our donations are matched one-for-one by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, your tax-deductible gift would make a huge difference at this important time.

You can donate now by credit card online or by sending a check made out to San Francisco Classical Voice to the address below. You can also help us to spread the word by forwarding this message to your friends and colleagues. Simply click the e-mail button on this page to invite them to join in the effort.

Thanks so much for reading SFCV and for considering this request.

With warm wishes,

Mickey Butts
Executive Director and Editor

San Francisco Classical Voice
c/o CIF of the San Francisco Foundation
225 Bush Street, Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94104
A project of the Community Initiative Funds of the San Francisco Foundation

Board of Advisors
Thomas Watrous (Chair)
Marie Bertillion Collins (Nominating Committee)
Mary C. Falvey (Finance Committee)
Gordon Getty
Howard Mel
Marina Nelson
Peter Winkelstein

That’s a complicated way of saying that you can subscribe to a “news feed” of content from your favorite Web sites or blogs. (Follow any RSS link on your favorite site for more information about specific feeds you can subscribe to. Visit SFCV’s RSS Page for more information about the feeds we offer.)

Subscribing to an RSS feed is different from subscribing with your e-mail address to an e-mail newsletter, however. The difference is that you subscribe through some form of an RSS Reader. These are now available in multiple forms, and you can experiment to find the one most convenient for you. Click on the suggested links that match your computer/software setup to read feeds:

• Directly from your favorite Web browser software (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari);
• As part of a Web site you visit (Google Reader, MyYahoo);
• In your e-mail box (now built into Apple Mail for Leopard users, and in Outlook for PC users through add-on software);
• Or using a downloadable software application called an RSS Reader (Newsgator).