Donemus Publishing

Donemus Publishing is a music publisher of contemporary classical music.

Donemus (compounded from Documentatiecentrum Nederlandse Muziek) is the Dutch institute dealing with the documentation of contemporary music composed in the Netherlands. Founded in 1947 it published thousands of scores and produced all instrumental parts.
After 2000 it merged with organizations like Centrum voor Nederlandse Muziek (CNM), RIM, Gaudeamus and the NPI.
After the end of the subsidy from the Dutch government, starting from January 2013, Donemus continued on a commercial basis.

Donemus' catalogue contains 14,500 works by 600 composers, and all of these compositions are available either as hardcopy or as electronic PDF files. The webshop reaches customers in over 80 countries. All compositions on the website have an automatic preview of the score, and many compositions have an audio sample as well.

Donemus also explores new developments such as music XML and digital music stands. In addition, Donemus has a large network of programmers, performers, ensembles, orchestras, and conductors, as well as receiving 10,000 weekly views on their online social network.

The rich collection of contemporary music includes works not only by treasured composers like Van Gilse, Diepenbrock, H. Andriessen, Badings and other masters of the early 20th century, but also by a later generation of composers like Ten Holt, Van Delden, Van Vlijmen and Schat.

Present-day composers, including Jeths, Padding, Torstensson, Tsoupaki, and Kulenty, are regularly performed internationally, and Donemus promotes these composers strongly by announcing their concerts on its social media outlets, as well as by outreach in the Americas, the U.K., Russia, and China. Donemus also invests in the youngest generation of composers like such as Roukens and De Graaff.

Formerly, Donemus published mainly Dutch composers, but more recently, Donemus has expanded its pool to include composers from countries from all over the globe, such as Martynov, Kourliandski, (Russia), Devreese, Brewaeys (Belgium), Martínez (Spain), Faegre (U.S.), and Lunyov (Ukraine).

The Donemus Foundation is the contract partner and guarantees a non-profit, longterm cooperation with composers in order to preserve their compositions for future generations of musicians.

Donemus believes that the future role of a publisher is more than just that of producing sheet music and promoting scores to programmers. Donemus not only produces high quality scores and parts to third parties, but also facilitates the online distribution of audio material through iTunes, Spotify, and many other channels. This makes Donemus the ideal 21st century publisher, making it possible for composers’ works to be heard and not just seen.

Recently, the Donemus Foundation launched its first Donemus Academy, a coaching course directed towards graduated composers who want to start or augment their career. The course aims to fill a gap in music education by providing composers with an opportunity to learn about different important topics that are necessary to succeed in the modern-day music business. These topics are: programming, author rights, funding, publishing, score editing and layout, and entrepreneurship. This coaching gives unique opportunity to increase the personal networks of young composers.

The Donemus Academy has been presented at the International Young Composers Academy in Tchaikovsky city (Perm region) where approx. 20 students from all over the world were coached by Donemus.