Between stalls, stage and score : an investigation of audience experience and enjoyment in classical music performance.

This thesis investigates the factors that affect the enjoyment of classical music concert
attendance and identifies audience members' underlying motivations for attending
classical performances. The experience of listening at live music events has been a topic
largely neglected by both musicology and music psychology. This thesis therefore
contributes to an emerging field of empirical research on classical music audience
experience, with most key existing studies published within the last five years. A
combined approach to data collection was employed to increase understanding of
audience experience and enjoyment at orchestral concerts. Unlike previous studies of
orchestral audiences, a questionnaire distributed to a concert audience ('attenders') was
combined with in-depth interviews with a subset of respondents to gain deeper
experiential accounts of classical concert attendance. In addition, a further study gained
wider perspectives on the factors that affect the enjoyment of concert attendance by
inviting eight individuals new to classical concert-going ('non-attenders') to three
orchestral concerts, eliciting their responses through focus group and individual
interviews.
The degree to which a concert provides accessible information with which to
contextualise the music is critical in determining non-attenders' enjoyment, as is
discerning interaction or communication with the performers. For both attenders and
non-attenders, familiarity with the repertoire performed did not necessarily equate to
greater levels of enjoyment, with some attenders consciously balancing the presence of
familiarity and novelty across the concert experience. Distinct elements of witnessing a
live performance acted as key underlying motivations for attending classical
performances, as did the types of individual and shared experiences facilitated by
listening to classical music within the concert hall setting. The thesis demonstrates the
complexity of individual responses to live classical listening, while arguing that
audience enjoyment relies on a series of predominantly social interactions between
audience members themselves, the performers, and the music performed.