The Revista Brasileira de Música (Brazilian Journal of Music) is the first scholarly journal on music in Brazil, founded under the tutelage of the oldest institution of the kind in this country, the School of Music at UFRJ, which completes 162 years of service. The RBM was created in 1934 by professor Guilherme Fontainha, who was then the director of the Instituto Nacional de Música (National Institute of Music), as an outcome of the reform that had been implemented three years earlier by Luciano Gallet. That institutional reform came with the incorporation of the Instituto Nacional de Música to the organizational structure of the newly established Universidade do Rio de Janeiro (University of Rio de Janeiro), later renamed Universidade do Brasil (University of Brazil), currently Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro).

	Photo: EM/UFRJ
	Luiz Heitor Correa de Azevedo, RBM's first editor, photographed in 1938 as he flipped through the journal.

Journal of a long-standing tradition, the RBM has counted on the contribution of distinguished scholars such as Mário de Andrade, Luís Heitor Correa de Azevedo, Ayres de Andrade and, more recently, Robert Stevenson, Gerard Bé­ha­gue, Ré­gis Du­prat, Ri­car­do Ta­cu­chian, Il­za No­guei­ra, Eli­za­beth Tra­vas­sos, Sa­muel A­raú­jo, Cris­ti­na Ma­gal­di, among others. Since 2008, the RBM has been a publication of UFRJ Graduate Studies Program in Music – the first of the kind in Brazil and which is now celebrating its 30th anniversary – and has taken on the challenge of meeting the current criteria of contemporary indexing systems for obtaining a statement of quality. One item concerns the composition of the Editorial Advisory Board, selected among eminent specialists with wide experience in the field, and affiliated with institutions of national and international reach. These colleagues from Brazil and abroad are engaged in this institutional project rooted in the academic tradition that has as priority to maintain the expected level of excellence for the RBM. To that end RBM also counts on a body of ad hoc referees composed of national and international researchers from several institutions. 

In its new phase, the RBM aims at fostering research on music through different interdisciplinary approaches as it upholds its broad scope concerning all fields of music inquiry. A scholarly journal traditionally focusing on issues related to Brazilian music and music in Brazil, the RBM also welcomes articles on issues and topics from other cultural areas that may further the dialogue with the international community of scholars as well as critical discussions concerning the field. Each volume is divided into the following sections: scholarly articles, in memoriam essay, reviews (book, CD, DVD and others), interview, and concludes with the section Brazilian Music Archive – consisting a musicological edition of a selected work from the Rare Collection of Alberto Nepomuceno Library of the School of Music at UFRJ, presented by an introductory text. Whenever possible, the volumes will be organized into themes proposed by the Editorial Board or arising from the substantial group of articles selected for publication. In this way, the RBM seeks to stimulate innovation, critical thought and discussion, as well as to capture and reflect upon trends, issues and questions that have headed current music research.