Opera Audiences and Cultural Value: A Study of Audience Experience

This project aims to better describe the cultural value of opera through a study of its most devoted audience members. Through qualitative surveys and in-depth, open-ended interviews with highly-engaged opera-goers, we identify and explore eight categories of interest that are important to this group’s experience of opera

THE NEED TO ACQUIRE ACCURATE CASUALTY RECORDS IN NATO OPERATIONS

It is trivially easy to discover the current death toll for NATO military personnel in Afghanistan since 2001. Several official and unofficial sources exist. For instance the NGO icasualties.org shows the breakdown by country, and also provides a list of names, continually updated. The list contains date of death, name, rank, age, service branch, cause of death, place of death and hometown. This tally is accurate, complete and uncontested – because it is entirely based on official information, principally from the US Department of Defense. In contrast, it is virtually impossible to get a clear and uncontested account of Afghan civilian deaths. There is no agreed total and there are no comprehensive or systematic rolls of the dead. What we have instead is a chaotic jumble of incomplete, contradictory and contested data. No organisation has undertaken sustained and consistent data gathering and presentation, and so there is no agreed authoritative record, nor any widely respected body able to authenticate future claims to such authority. Some partial data has been put into the public domain by a variety of players. These include th

Music and art in conflict transformation: a review

Theme issue on music and arts in conflict transformationSince the early 1990s, there has been an increase in the use of music and the arts within a conflict transformation context. This guest editorial discusses the developments in this research and practical area. The current status of the field, and challenges it faces, are then examined within the context of this issue's theme of the arts and conflict transformation/peace building

Using digital content to build audiences for live opera

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report on audience response to selected digital content produced by English Touring Opera (ETO) in support of the company’s Autumn 2015 tour. Methodology This study was conducted collaboratively between ETO and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. The research team used focus groups to explore audience reactions to five items of supporting material produced by ETO. Through a qualitative analysis of the transcribed sessions, this report investigates how the items function, both individually and in general. Research Limitations As this is a qualitative study with a small sample group (23 individuals; 8 sessions), the results do not take the form of statistical conclusions. Future research might test the findings and hypotheses using a large-scale, quantitative study. Findings Viewers use online materials such as trailers, interviews, and rehearsal footage to appropriately align their expectations of a live performance, and to increase their familiarity with both the producing company and with specific productions. Viewers want the clips to feature music and imagery from the productions. In order to function well, the online materials must clearly demonstrate their relationship to the company and to the production. If successful in performing these functions, the online materials are likely to increase anticipation and thereby enhance the impact of attendance at a live performance. Practical Implications Digital content should help audiences know what to expect from a production, and encourage them to feel anticipation about attending. Content should be carefully contextualised so that viewers know what to expect from it and can decide whether or not (and when) to engage with it. Value The originality of this study lies both in its collaborative methodology and in the newness of the subject under investigation. Arts companies are increasingly interested in producing digital content, and this study could help inform strategies to ensure that those materials effectively enhance the audience experience.This research was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council [grant Number AH/J005142/1

Music and its meaning, how has the last 30 years of music psychology research progressed our knowledge?

There are three different types of scholarship, primary, secondary, and meta-scholarship. This paper applies a meta-approach to the question of musical meaning, which involves some assessment of where the enterprise as a whole has come from and is heading, its value and external impact. Three aspects of meaning are discussed: referential, functional and socially transformative. Referential meaning refers to our ability to apprehend a musical object as pointing beyond itself. Functional meaning refers to valued personal outcomes that musical engagement engenders. Transformative meaning refers to effects on the wider society. Consultative data from an expert panel is used to frame the discussion. This data shows multiple ways in which recent psychology research has advanced our understanding of how music acquires referential and functional meaning. To date, stronger theoretical clarity has been achieved in the area of referential meaning than in functional meaning. The strongest socially transformative effect of music psychology research has been on the discipline of musicology itself. Weaker, but still significant, effects are found in the wider society, relating to understandings of the benefits of musical engagement, and the acceptance universality of musical capacity as an inherent human attribute

25 years of ESCOM: Achievements and challenges

This reflection on the first 25 years of ESCOM’s activities is in two parts. In the first part we analyse the country and discipline spread of contributors to its journal Musicae Scientiae and its formal membership. In the second we address the choice of “cognitive sciences of music” as the initial focus of both Society and journal by comparing the topics of early meetings and publications with those that are current now. Journal contributors and members are both concentrated in a small number of countries. When corrected for population size, the countries with the highest levels of activity are, in order: Finland, Estonia, UK, Sweden, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria. This has not changed substantially over the duration of ESCOM’s existence. In contrast, there have been significant changes in the disciplinary spread of contributions, psychology becoming increasingly popular in recent years to the near exclusion of some other disciplinary approaches including ethnomusicology, computational modelling and theoretical musicology. Current topics include performance and composition, emotion, musical development, perception, music therapy and well-being, music learning, preferences, cognition, and neuropsychological approaches. An early aspiration of the Society was that the wide range of disciplines represented by the cognitive sciences of music might eventually converge, but this has proved difficult to achieve. An increasing convergence on the use of English as its normative language, however, has provided ESCOM with both new challenges and some opportunities

El joven intérprete

Es una traducción de: The Young Performing Musician. Musical Beginnings. Origins and Development of Musical Competence, L. Deliège y J. Sloboda; Oxford (1996). Oxford University Press; pág. 171-190.Isabel García Adánez (traductora)

Audience Reactions to Repeating A Piece on A Concert Programme

Repetition of a piece on a concert programme is a well-established, but uncommon performance practice. Musicians have presumed that repetition benefits audience enjoyment and understanding but no research has examined this. In two naturalistic and one lab study, we examined audience reaction to repeated live performances of contemporary pieces played by the same ensemble. In all studies, we asked listeners to rate their enjoyment and willingness to hear the piece again (Affective), and perceived understanding and predicted memory of the piece (Cognitive). In Study 3, we assessed immediate recognition memory of each excerpt. In all studies, Cognitive variables increased significantly. Affective reaction also increased except for one piece that was well liked at first hearing. Memory performance was low and not related to predicted memory, nor increased after a second hearing. Being informed or not had no systematic effect on reaction. Audience and performer reaction was mixed. We discuss the implications for musical directors when considering repeat performances

Death in Baghdad

Bombings in Baghdad reduced, but never went away: 229 civilians were killed in explosions in the 3 years leading up to the Jan 21, 2021 attack

Audience reactions to repeating a piece on a concert programme

Repetition of a piece on a concert programme is a well established, but uncommon performance practice. Musicians have presumed that repetition benefits audience enjoyment and understanding but no research has examined this. In two naturalistic and one lab study, we examined audience reaction to repeated live performances of contemporary pieces played by the same ensemble. In all studies, we asked listeners to rate their enjoyment and willingness to hear the piece again (Affective), and perceived understanding and predicted memory of the piece (Cognitive). In Study 3, we assessed immediate recognition memory of each excerpt. In all studies, Cognitive variables increased significantly. Affective reaction also increased except for one piece that was well liked at first hearing. Memory performance was low and not related to predicted memory, nor increased after a second hearing. Being informed or not had no systematic effect on reaction. Audience and performer reaction was mixed. We discuss the implications for musical directors when considering repeat performance