A study of participants attending public concerts that staged classical and contemporary chamber music had the goal to analyse the associations between self-reported experiences and physiological responses, hence addressing a core question of embodied cognition. A sample of 690 participants was recruited, whose physiological signals were recorded with wearable sensors during concerts. After the concerts, music segments were individually presented to participants. The segments were excerpts selected from the concert just attended. Eight segments were shown to each participant in a stimulated-recall procedure, and the participant's experiences of the music in the segment were obtained using rating scales. Cardiac, respiratory, and skinconductance responses were found linked with varying aspects of segment experience. Experiences of beauty and high valence of aesthetic emotions were associated with sympathetic activation and attenuated parasympathetic activation. We discuss the implications of empirical mind–body–music findings within the philosophy of mind and assess their compatibility with materialist, dualist, and emergentist conceptions of the mind–body debate and the science of consciousness.

Theories are like microscopes or telescopes. They allow us to recognize phenomena and interdependences that we could not see with the naked eye or through our everyday perspective. They are theoretical lenses through which we can delve deep into a structure or gain a new understanding of how things are interconnected. This article attempts to explain systems-theoretical thinking and demonstrate its usefulness in arts management. The focus of the system can vary greatly; a work of art can be viewed as a system, as can a cultural organization, the art market, or even the art world. The article highlights developments in systems theory, such as the theory of social systems, the St. Gallen Management Model, and systems modeling.

Objective: Investigations of aesthetic experience have continually searched for field-research methodologies that measure physiological and self-report responses reliably and with little invasiveness. On this background, the interdisciplinary research project “ECR–Experimental Concert Research” set out to study aesthetic experience in live public concerts. Methods: A team of scientists from musicology, psychology, cultural studies, and software engineering were brought together to cooperate in this project. Here we describe the methodology, design, and infrastructure to enable this endeavor, realized in 3 pilot concerts and 11 final concerts, with approximately 900 participants. The technical setup involved the physiological measurements of electrodermal, cardiac, and respiratory activity; facial expressions; and motion capture. Before and after concerts, participants provided sociological information and experiential assessments of the musical performance, including an automated stimulated-recall rating of selected musical segments. Results: The implementation of the methodological framework in the field generated an integrated dataset of high quality and ecological validity. We present the merits and challenges of this framework.

Objective: This article examines the classical concert experience, with a particular focus on the connection between immediate impressions after the concert and memories of the concert several weeks later. Methods: Qualitative interviews were conducted with participants of the study immediately after the concert. A second survey was conducted six weeks later. These studies were compared, analysing the immediate experience (interviews) and the lasting memories (survey) of the concert event. Results: The findings indicate that most respondents expressed positive evaluations of the concert and the music. The visual impressions regarding the musicians, the emotional proximity to the music and the concert venue are of particular significance regarding the concert experience. The study offers novel perspectives on the field of classical concert studies and provides insights into enhancing the accessibility of classical concerts for a broader audience. Via empirical-based audience studies, this study supports audience development in the field of classical music concerts.

The motivation to attend cultural events is an insightful aspect with which to study audiences. To understand their motivations and experiences is key for audience development. However, classical concert visitors have rarely been studied in this regard. Moreover, the relationship between motivation and experience has not been studied at all. To shed light on this topic, 802 concertgoers of a concert series were surveyed before and after the concert about their motivations, expectations, and experiences and also provided sociodemographic information. A cluster analysis of motivation items reveals four types of concert visitors: concert accompaniers, concert enthusiasts, social-event visitors, and music lovers. The statistical analysis of the types shows that they also differ regarding frequency of concert attendance, music education, lifestyle, listening modes, etc., as well as regarding their expectations and experiences. For the field of audience research, this analysis represents a comprehensive and novel perspective on classical concert visitors and offers meaningful implications in the fields of arts management, cultural sociology, and concert design.

The COVID-19 pandemic has given a boost to the audiovisual streaming of classical concerts - a cultural practice long entrenched in the analog. While opportunities and problems for the convergence of classical concert culture and the digital sphere are already discussed in research and practice, the debate about the future of this trend lacks a unified starting point. Addressing this, the present article examines classical music performance practice in digital forms by presenting a systematization of the field of practice and a comprehensive literature overview. For the systematization, different types of streaming platforms for classical concerts are categorized along dimensions of streaming. Additionally, ideal-typical digital concert formats are described based on examples (user-generated concert, conventional digital concert, concert film, concert show). The literature section summarizes previous publications, from the perspective of both production and reception of audiovisual concert streaming. Subsequently, research foci are identified. With suggestions for future research and outlooks into future scenarios for digital concerts, the scientific and practical analyses are synthesized. Mapping the emerging field of audiovisual digital concerts, this article serves as a starting point and a framework for further debates on digital classical concerts and other forms of digital performance practice.

The presented study compares conventional live concerts to digital streams on multiple audience experience dimensions in ecologically valid settings. Furthermore, it includes an analysis of the audience's previous expectations regarding certain aspects of concert experience. Data from pre- and post-concert questionnaires from concertgoers of 12 concerts in physical co-presence of musicians and audience (with a total sample size of N = 1,133 participants) were compared with those from four digital stream concerts. The concert program included Western classical music by van Beethoven and Brahms and a contemporary piece by Brett Dean. We found that the live concerts were rated significantly higher in three out of four experience dimensions, especially in terms of social experience. Furthermore, those concertgoers who had a priori high expectations toward social experiences rated these even more intensively at the live concerts compared to digital streams. We also observed that the felt interaction of musicians and audience was stronger in live concerts. These results strongly support theory about concert experience and bring new indications of what is unique about live concerts, distinguishing their experience from that of the digital stream concerts.

Objective: The classical concert is forced to compete with other art and cultural events. It seems that it has lost much of its appeal in attracting (new) audience members in recent years, visible in declining audience numbers and aging audiences. As a reaction, managers of orchestras, classical music festivals or concert halls are experimenting with new concert formats, such as concert moderation, late-night concerts, special venues, participatory concerts, staged concerts, curated programming, visuals and others. The article focuses on these concert variations and how they affect the concert visitors. Methods: With this in mind, we experimentally examined, in 11 concerts in Berlin, different concert formats regarding their effect on concertgoers (n = 787). Different concert formats, such as different concert venues, different ensembles, variations in moderation, visuals, sound amplification, etc. were tested. We studied the concert as a multidimensional experience, dependent on the musicians’ and listeners’ disposition, the live atmosphere, the concert hall, and other aspects of staging the music. Results: The findings revealed that concert formats generally had subtle effects on audience experiences, where the venue and its atmosphere played a more prominent role. We may safely assume that the musicians and their interpretation had a slightly more substantial influence on the overall experience than the format. The study challenges assumptions about the impact of moderation, lighting, visuals, and participatory elements, hence offering insights for concert designers and managers. While the results are perhaps surprising, they contribute to a nuanced understanding of the multidimensional nature of concert experiences.

Listening modes are often ignored in music perception research, especially when it comes to the supposedly attentive listening situation of a classical concert. The audience members’ various ways of listening, understood as the directedness of activity toward different dimensions of sound, is hypothesized to play a key role in the experience of live music. We assessed listening activity of participants ( N = 786) attending a series of experimental live concerts. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed the following five listening modes: emotional-immersive, structural, sound-causal, diffuse, and single-focused. Furthermore, listening modes significantly predicted affective states (positive activation, negative activation, and valence) after the concert. Results show that, despite music educational paradigms, structural listening increases negative activation, whereas emotional-immersive and sound-causal listening increase valence and lead to relaxation in a classical music performance. The results are in line with former empirical and theoretical taxonomies of listening modes and provide a new contribution to the understanding of the role of listening modes for the perception and aesthetic experience of music in live concerts and beyond.

Synchronization and the bodily coordination of people in social interaction is by now a regular finding in psychotherapy research and social psychology. Recently, we have expanded the scope of synchrony research to empirical aesthetics and music. Studying audience members of public classical concerts, we hypothesized that the shared musical stimuli synchronize the physiological dynamics of listeners and, if so, the individual degree of synchrony is linked to a listener’s aesthetic experiences, music appreciation, affect and personality traits. The same may be expected for synchronized movement. After data acquisition with over 900 participants, we can now report significant evidence of physiological synchrony (cardiac and respiratory measures, skin conductance response) as well as movement synchrony in classical audiences, and distinct patterns of association with self-rated subjective experience. We believe this shows how the experience of music is embodied in listeners??? synchronies. We conclude this empirical review with suggestions how the embodiment approach may be situated in the philosophy of mind.

To explore the issues around the production and design of digital concert streams, we conducted an online survey of n = 1,619 classical concert stream audience members (56,5% females, mean age 49 years). Participants were asked about their preference of various characteristics of digital concert productions, their use of and experience with various stream platforms and their socio-demographics. Considering various media user typologies previously identified in the literature, we were further interested in segmenting the audience via Latent Profile Analysis based on their preference for many different concert stream production features. We identified three distinct profiles, representing different target groups for digital concert stream productions: Digital Concert Purists (34.3% of participants), Undecided and Less Engaged Concert Users (15.2% of participants), and Digital Concert Enthusiasts (50.2% of participants). Different socio-demographic characteristics and music preferences were significantly, albeit only weakly associated with a person's probability of being a member of a certain user group. These results imply that producers of classical concert streams should consider that there are different audience groups that should be addressed differently, especially with regards to conventional and more innovative concert features.

Music is listened to in many different situational and media frames that can be expected to shape its experience. In this study, we were interested in the effects that different formats of audiovisual streaming of classical concerts can have on the aesthetic experience of their audience. We also investigated the effects of preferences for streaming features. A total of N = 525 participants watched one of four chamber music concert streams and reported their expectations, appreciation, and experiences. Overall, participants liked the concerts and reported positive experiences. The immersive emotional and social dimensions of aesthetic experiences with music, however, were only rarely activated, showing the disadvantage of recorded as compared to live performances. Several experience dimensions were influenced by streaming format: a stream that allowed audience members to interact on a chat platform afforded a stronger social experience, but less concentration; while a stream that included an introductory talk led to a better understanding of the programming and increased feelings of melancholy. Effects of the preference for certain stream types were only found in the stream that most resembled a standard audiovisual concert broadcast but were leveled out in other stream formats explicitly designed to counterbalance known disadvantages of nonlive performances. From our study, we draw conclusions regarding the importance of an experimental approach to frame effects not only on the aesthetic experience of music but also on the future of concert streams as a new musical medium in its own (aesthetic) right.

Article Peer Review Process was published on December 1, 2021 in the journal Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy / Zeitschrift für Kulturmanagement und Kulturpolitik (volume 7, issue 2).

Entrainment and synchronization play major roles in understanding the emotional effects of music; thus, we were interested in synchronized responses of concert audiences listening to music. A series of three separate public live concerts of the same three pieces (chamber music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Brett Dean, Johannes Brahms) was organized. Based on the notion that aesthetic experiences are embodied, we recorded the physiological signals (heart rate, respiration rate, skin conductance response) of all audience members of the concerts. We expected that the shared musical stimuli would entrain the physiological processes of listeners, which would become synchronized. Such synchrony was assumed to indicate the level of immersion in the music, a part of aesthetic experience, and hence be associated with self-report of music appreciation. Physiological signals of a sample of 99 participants were aggregated per bar of the music. Physiological synchrony was assessed using surrogate synchrony, an established method based on cross-correlations. Surrogate synchrony was applied to all dyads of listeners of each concert. Self-report information was provided by listeners after each piece (scales: Appreciation and Connectedness/Empathizing) and after the concert (scales: Appreciation, Timing, and Inconvenience of Measurements). We found significant audience synchronies in most music pieces. Across the pieces, skin conductance synchrony and respiration rate synchrony were associated with self-reported appreciation. Assessments of inconvenience due to the measurement devices was linked with lowered respiration rate synchrony. We concluded that the approach of audience synchrony constitutes a step toward an objective methodology by which aesthetic experiences of concert audiences can be explored.

Digital Concert Experience (DCE) is a research project designed and conducted to contribute to a better understanding of audience experience in online streams of Western classical music in ecologically valid settings. Based on an online survey, a latent profile analysis identified three different audience segments of classical concert streams. These are differentiated by different preferences for stream characteristics. In a subsequent experiment, participants watched one out of four different stream variations and were asked to rate different aspects of their concert experience. Seven main dimensions of concert experience were derived from the questionnaire answers and subsequently analyzed with respect to presented stream variations. Concert streams were found to have the potential to evoke high appreciation of music, but to evoke lower degrees of emotional and immersive experience, according to our results. Social interaction opportunities available during the stream led to increased feelings of social connection. Additional information about a certain piece in the programme had a strong effect on the understanding of it. Moreover, we observed differentiated forms of concert experience within each preference group dependent on presented stream variation. We close the chapter by providing an outlook on our Experimental Concert Research (ECR) project, which aims to holistically explore the concert experience in conventional live concerts with physical co-presence of musicians and audience in an ecologically valid way. Both projects contribute to the empirical study of the classical concert experience with regard to current challenges of classical music in the cultural sector.