The Sound Exchange has developed over a period of several years and it seen as an ongoing web project that will continue to evolve for years to come. Facilities such as The Forum or the Sample Libraries will become richer over time with the accumulated contributions of site users. There are many other examples throughout the site where people are invited to contribute resources or participate in both online and offline events. We have devised an ongoing programme of interactive events and planned developments that will ensure The Sound Exchange remains at the cutting edge of music education, creation and discovery for years to come.

The Vision for The Sound Exchange came about from research originally carried out for the Philharmonia Orchestra by Olivia Lowson in 2000. She asessed the potential for the Orchestra to create an Education and Access Web Site. The possible new site would need to to provide opportunities for people to learn about the Orchestra, about music and at the same time to exploit the internet to help widen access to the Orchestra, which is something the Orchestra was very keen to do. Professor Andrew Hugill of De Montfort University proposed an innovative and exciting range of resources, interactive projects and approaches that could be developed for the Education and Access Site.

Construction

The Arts Council of England agreed that the plans for the original Sound Exchange site were highly innovative and generously awarded a substantial grant towards the development of the site. This enabled us in 2002 to commission Professor Hugill to begin working on the core resources, key amongst them being an online orchestration manual and a sample library.

Throughout 2004 The former Sound Exchange Manager, Myles Jackson set up the orginal site, put the content into place, produced new resources, wrote much of the text and prepared the site for launch to the public.

In 2008 The Sound Exchange underwent a major redesign. The majority of content and resources were brought up-to-date to take advantage of the latest technologies and to maintain a fresh look and feel for the site.This work was all undertaken by the Philharmonia's in-house Digital Projects team.

BT Sponsorship

During 2004, impressed at the range and sophistication of our plans for The Sound Exchange, BT agreed to become sponsors of the site and to support a range of exciting online projects. Their ongoing commitment has enabled us to produce live concert webcasts, online composer workshops, new music education videos and to take forward many other exciting plans.

The first site  

The 'old' soundexchange was launched in January 2005, and was replaced by a newer version in the September 2008.  During it's lifetime the Philharmonia Orchestra was the first Orchestra in the World to webcast a live concert, we ran our virtual PLAY.orchestra and more recently established a video podcast series.

The new Sound Exchange

We felt that the site was looking rather tired and dated, and wanted to change the site's infrastructure so that it would link in better with the other Philharmonia sites and also to take advantage of the technical innovations that had happened in the last three years. The new sound exchange, launched in September 2008 coincides with the arrival of the Philharmonia Orchestra's new Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor, Esa-Pekka Salonen.

The Future

The future is full of exciting possibilities! We will continue to add new resources, run cutting-edge interactive projects and push the boundaries of what is possible.

We very much hope you will enjoy using The Sound Exchange and will share the site with others.