Happy 20th Birthday to Violinist.com!

Twenty years ago today, I bought Laurie a most unusual Christmas present - a domain name.

The only Internet domain registrar at the time was running a special, in which it would send you a plain, white T-shirt with your newly registered domain name printed in black block lettering. So I was able to wrap the shirt for Laurie and place it under the tree of our new apartment in Denver.

Laurie beamed as she unwrapped the gift, then her expression went blank.

"What the heck is 'Violinist.com'?"

So I explained the concept of an Internet domain to her, and told her that she could use it for a nifty little email address. But after thinking about it for a while, she decided that it would be nice if we could create something that would allow other violinists to create accounts and post their virtual resumes online. So a sometime a few months after Christmas, the first Violinist.com member directory went live.

The rest, as they say, is history.

So on the 20th anniversary of the birth of Violinist.com, I would like to thank all of you - our readers and our supporters - for having helped make Violinist.com something far, far better than the plain white T-shirt it started as. And I especially would like to thank Laurie for being such a perfect custodian of the domain and leader of this community.

At the time Violinist.com began, Laurie was playing in the Colorado Springs Symphony and Boulder Philharmonic, having just finished several years in the Omaha and Lincoln symphonies, as we'd just moved to Denver from Omaha. In Omaha, Laurie also had worked as a reporter for the local newspaper, giving her a unique combination of professional orchestral and journalism experience.

What would you ever do with that combination of skills? Well, how about running a violin website? Over the years, Laurie has added a discussion board, and then a blog, to the website, eventually expanding her blog to include some of the best interviews of violinists and musical educators that you'll find anywhere. She collected many of her best interviews into a book a couple of years ago, and I don't think I'm spoiling anything by revealing that Laurie is working on Volume 2 of The Violinist.com Interviews, which will be available sometime in 2017.

So today, we wish everyone in the Violinist.com community - our members, readers, friends, and supporters - a very Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and a Happy Holiday season. Thank you for being with us for however many of these 20 years you've been with us, and here's looking forward to many more wonderful years in the future.

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