No abstract

Symphony orchestras today acknowledge the need to make their art relevant again in today's societies and innovate their practices. When these innovations regard audience participation, they challenge the ritualised formats of classical music performance and disrupt normative, social, and artistic traditions. The orchestra therefore presents an interesting case to develop a better understanding of the value-laden dynamics of innovation in public participation. Implicit notions of an 'ideal public' and its desirable behaviour often structure the design, setup , and assessment of participatory innovations. Fieldwork during the Empty Minds concerts, that the South Netherlands Philharmonic organised in 2018 to innovate participation, supports this claim. The organisers aimed to assign new participatory roles to the audience. Throughout the organisational process, three forms of frictions developed. The hierarchical pattern of symphonic concerts conflicted with the plan for new audience participation, material routines were challenged, and during the actual concerts, audience members did not participate in new ways. The observed frictions show that what matters artistically cannot be separated from how the performance is organised: artistic qualities emerge in and through socio-material practice. What comes to count as desirable public participation is thus not a given, but needs to be continuously articulated, negotiated and constructed.

People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers. Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal. If the publication is distributed under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the "Taverne" license above, please follow below link for the End User Agreement:

The outbreak of COVID-19 has greatly impacted musicians and orchestras. While many orchestras had ample experience in producing and distributing their concerts online, others now had to experiment with new ways of performing online. But how to perform classical music without the rituals and routines of the concert hall? And what skills are required for musicians and orchestras to engage in online musicking? Based on our fieldwork during the experiment Online Musicking, which took place during the first lockdown in the Netherlands in 2020, we explicate the hidden work that goes into producing and distributing a collaborative classical music video, regarding performance qualities, audience participation, and societal relevance. The case of Online Musicking shows the challenges of shaping a digital offer for online audiences, and the value of experimentation for orchestras, which are finding new ways to produce and distribute.

In the 21 st century, symphonic music institutions face major challenges that question their traditional ways of operating. Whereas symphonic music was a vital element in the European cultural landscape until the 1960s, it has since become a museum art form, as has been argued, for example, by Peter J. Burkholder (2006), and its relevance has been questioned (see, for instance, Johnson 2002). The social value of classical orchestral music has changed profoundly, and its identification with high culture is no longer uncontested. In the Netherlands, as in many other affluent Western countries, these developments are accompanied by stagnating audience numbers (e.g. Raad voor Cultuur 2014), and a decrease in government funding. Extramusical success criteria are formulated that should ensure that government investment benefits not only the established audiences. However, a neoliberal focus on quantifiable results, fuelled by policies to increase market-generated income, has not fundamentally changed symphonic music practice. The majority of symphony orchestras continue to organise concerts in concert halls for an audience that knows what to expect (Johnson 1994). The roles of the various actors in this practice -musicians, managers, music educators, audience members -are codified in a standard model of the production and consumption of canonical compositions. Most classical music concerts have the character of a ritual that is loved and valued by musicians and audiences alike.In recent years, however, many orchestras in European countries have taken up the challenge to innovate. They have introduced new formats to engage with existing audiences and attract new audiences, such as people of differing social and cultural backgrounds (Idema 2012, Topgaard 2014, Hamel 2016. In addition to strategies to innovate concert formats, orchestras are