Empty Minds: Innovating Audience Participation in Symphonic Practice

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.

Analysis of Requirements and Significance of Conductors in Large Symphony Orchestra

“…The rhythm and speed of the performance conductor of a large symphony orchestra represent the emotional changes of the music [1] . How to unleash a high level of conducting art is a question that every conductor is deeply contemplating.…”

Listen closely

“…observations were meant to serve a practical aim too. They not only function as an 'end result' in the form of this dissertation but also played a role throughout the process of the larger project: my observations became part of conversations with staff and musicians of the orchestra, my analyses served as mirrors that enabled reflection while doing experiments, and my writings ended up as material in the collaborative learning model we, researchers, staff members, and orchestral musicians, developed together (see www.artfulparticipation.nl; Peters et al, 2020;Spronck et al, 2021;Van de Werff et al, forthcoming). 8 While conducting this research about the innovation of audience participation in symphonic music, I was thus also part of a project that, together with a symphony orchestra, was experimenting with that very theme in practice.…”

“…These children were the quietest of all, so there, they agree, their aim of creating a moment of attentive listening in silence worked out best (Field notes, 11 April 2019). 57 An adaptation of this section has been published as article in Science as Culture (Spronck et al, 2021).…”

“…Furthermore, I gave nineteen presentations at local events at Maastricht University and Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, either alone about my PhD or together with colleagues about the broader Artful Participation project. Apart from that, I published a peer-reviewed article and a book chapter (Spronck et al, 2021;Spronck, forthcoming). In the upcoming period I will explore how and where this dissertation could best be published as a monograph.…”

Archives of change

“…This book, the result of a research project in the Maastricht Centre for the Innovation of Classical Music (MCICM), founded in 2018, is proof of that. So far, the concert ritual has been critically questioned as a site for innovation, leading to the creation of new concert formats, experimental concert spaces, and alternative ways for the audience to participate (Idema, 2012;Pitts, 2005;Spronck, 2022;Toelle & Sloboda, 2019). Recently, and in light of the rise of social and political movements such as Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, and Fridays for Future, issues of decolonisation and diversification of the canon, equality, and sustainability have been added to the mountain of challenges that classical music faces.…”