With the publication of the Dimitri Tiomkin Anthology by the Hal Leonard Corporation, Tiomkin’s music has become available to a wider audience in print form and reached a new generation of music lovers in 2009. In conjunction with the Anthology, more than a dozen Tiomkin songs have been reinterpreted in brand new recordings by vocalists Whitney Claire Kaufman and Darice Richman Cooper. Several selections for solo piano also have been recorded by Leah Parker. To hear mp3s of these performances, go here.

Hal Leonard also published a concert suite for It’s a Wonderful Life that will allow Tiomkin’s music to be heard in the concert hall for years to come. And, in the archives of the University of Southern California (USC) Cinematic Arts Library, work continues on digitizing a number of Tiomkin’s handwritten sketches and full scores.

On the Internet, the official Dimitri Tiomkin Web Site had the distinction of being included in the June Scout Report. This report, viewed and consulted by librarians, is published by the Internet Scout Project from the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Using a world-class array of computer science and library resources, highly educated content specialists whittle through an immense amount of Internet data, calling attention to particularly worthy and informative sites. About www.dimitritiomkin.com, one reviewer wrote that “visitors can listen to excerpts from his film scores, learn about his various awards, and also read a biographical essay. The ‘Photo Gallery’ area is a real treat, and visitors can browse through photographs of Tiomkin, his wife, and some of the actors and directors he worked with over the years. The ‘Audio Clips’ section contains clips from some of his most memorable scores, and visitors can also listen to them as they wander around the site.”

Most commercial Web sites collect and analyze site-usage data in order to optimize and tailor their content to patrons and users. The Tiomkin site is not a commercial venture, but let’s look at the usage figures provided by Google Analytics. An average of 15,000 unique visitors come to this site each year; that number has doubled since 2005. For November 2009, the average number of pages viewed per visit was five; the average time spent on the site was 3:24; and 72 percent of visitors were new. In addition to organic traffic from search engines Google and Yahoo!, the top two referring sites are Screen Archives (www.screenarchives.com) and Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org). The top entry pages are the Home page, News, Biography, and Filmography. The Photo Gallery and Audio Clips, as mentioned in the Scout Report, are also popular. Around 75 percent of visits are from the United States—with the United Kingdom consistently finishing second—but the site draws visitors from sixty-nine other countries or territories. A snapshot for November shows the top ten countries as the United States, France, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Russia, Spain, Japan, Italy, and Poland. China, Sweden, and Australia have all made appearances in the top ten at some point.

Thanks to Olivia Tiomkin Douglas and Patrick Russ for their support, and to our Web team, Gabe Nordyke of Insights Design Studio and David Panzarella of SB InnerWeb Development.