In 2011, ARC launched the first "World Music Day" celebrating Islamic music and culture. This site was accessed by more than 250,000 people
worldwide on the initial date and still gets over 2,000 visitors daily. The project was awarded the prestigious "Innovative Use of Archives Award" by the Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York.
Building on this success ARC will create the first Brazilian World Music Day (BWMD). BWMD will be a website used to present, promote, and explore the rich cultural heritage of Brazilian music. ARC will invite real-time global grassroots participation by artists, fans and scholars. BWMD will offer videos, histories, seminars, concerts, lectures, sound files, sheet music, album cover art galleries, essays, blogs, photos and links all highlighting the importance and beauty of Brazilian music. In addition, it will educate a global audience about the cultures many genres and facets. With Google maps ARC will create an interactive map that will pinpoint and link genres and artists by region.
A major component of BWMD will be the database describing ARC's Brazilian Music Collection and Brazilian recordings held by all archives and libraries around the world. ARC is already the largest collection of Brazilian music outside of Brazil, with more than 5,000 recordings. The archives goal is to grow this collection of 78s, LPs and CDs in partnership with a cultural institution in Brazil. Information on all Brazilian recordings in the world will be posted in a freely available online database for reference and research as part of the website.
The project director for Brazilian World Music Day is New York based producer Béco Dranoff, known for his work with Bebel Gilberto, The Red Hot Organization (Red Hot + Rio projects) and the documentary Beyond Ipanema: Brazilian Waves in Global Music.
The ARChive of Contemporary Music, now in its 25th year, is the largest collection of popular music in the world, with over two million recordings. It is supported by a Board of Advisors comprised of leading musicians, songwriters and directors, including David Bowie, Jellybean Benitez, Jonathan Demme, Michael Feinstein, Youssou N'Dour, Lou Reed, Keith Richards, Nile Rodgers, Todd Rundgren, Fred Schneider, Martin Scorsese, Paul Simon and Mike Stoller.