I reserved this concert in September, both for my own interest and to get some experience and inspiration from this event. First of all, unlike traditional classical concerts, this concert is about playing fun and interesting Disney music. I was very pleased that one of the participants of the intervention had invited me to come along to this concert, and at least my intevention succeeded in getting her to take an active interest in classical music. I was very happy that at least my intervention succeeded in getting her to take an active interest in classical music.
Feedback from concert:
I think that the format and choice of repertoire really combined classical music with a variety of art forms. Firstly, the concert featured performers from various musical disciplines such as Alfir Boe, Cherise, The Tenors, and because the theme was Disney, many families came to the concert and the response from the audience was that it was a very successful musical initiation for the children in attendance. This event inspired me to do an intervention with a fusion piece of classical music, with more familiar elements in the repertoire that might be more interesting to people.
The analysis of the data collected shows that the targeted group’s capacity to use classical music as a ‘tool’ exceeds their own perceptions, they don’t call classical music ” aware listening ” as a background music for work/study/need to be calming, but rather they use the function of classical music subconsciously. This has inspired me to focus on how to integrate classical music into the lifestyle of young people in my next convention design and to create a positive impact (generating good impressions and emotions) rather than applying it mechanically as the primary goal.
Reaching the stakeholders easily requires an understanding of their routes and areas of residence. After searching the web and visiting the site, East London is one of the places where the young people is highly active, because it is one of the core areas where pop culture is concentrated. The area is home to a number of trendy cafes, restaurants and shopping store(lifestyle/clothing), making it a popular activity area for young people. I will try to design one of my subsequent conventions in East London to achieve better results and to get valuable feedback.
This video is a part of interviews due to the file size is too large.
I had my August tutorial today, and after reporting on some of my research and interventions, Sasha gave some targeted advice. One of the things I felt was more appropriate at this stage was the need to create different playlists to broadly classify different styles of classical music. Another perspective he gave me was that creating different playlists can help people to enjoy/focus more on the present moment in a variety of life situations, such as cooking, afternoon tea, work and so on, and that creating a playlist of classical music can help people to engage with it more in their lives, i.e. to live it, which can help classical music to penetrate better into people’s lives. At the same time, it is also important to explore the fun side of classical music, as interest is the best teacher for people, so that they are motivated to engage with classical music. I will be looking for more innovations and collaborations in this area and will be able to see if they are feasible through subsequent interventions.
Among the many suggestions, I think the one that inspired me the most is creating habits related to classical music; too complicated, too big an intervention may turn off the audience, but a simple and short one is more approachable. The only way to make it sustainable is to make it sustainable, so that the audience can keep doing it without being reminded, and then it will be a virtuous circle that will continue to grow. I think the socialisation of classical music is also a direction that can be explored and experimented with.
I have had an online interview with a MA music performance(classical) student who have studied music over 15 years. And the most inspired ideal I got from her was it needs to be targeted to guide the people involved, as human habits and interests are difficult to influence and change directly through words. It is necessary to create a good sense of experience for them to change their stereotypes about classical music on their own, so that they will retain their habits. Developing an interest is also a part of the process that cannot be ignored.
Therefore, in the design of the next intervention, I need to use fun as the initial attraction, and then lead the audience to unconsciously experience and explore the functionality of classical music, and I need to make an organic combination of these two in order to make the most of it.
I have had some feedback from the presentation from tutors, and I kind of blocked from the feedback. There’s many exist events similar to my intervention, why is necessary to launch the intervention. I feels like there’s more research needed to be done, to get some inspiration from somewhere. I should communicate with more people related to the industry to get some different perspectives.
Through some research, I have realised that discovering the practicality of a project is more solid, more organic, than the aspect of developing its interest.
At this stage I mainly want to learn and explore the functions of classical music. In previous volunteer feedback, most people reported that they found classical music to be helpful in calming anxiety and even had some effect in helping them fall asleep. I think exploring the functionality of classical music will be useful for people with scenario-based applications. What I can see at the moment is the therapeutic aspect of music, as part of the genre of classical music is characterised by calmness and serenity, which could be applied to this aspect of mood/stress. I will also read up on research and I know that some universities already offer music therapy as a subject. I will then search for relevant repertoire and design an intervention.
In order to confirm my judgement and feedback from the first concert I attended, and to judge whether the “professionalism” of the concert had a visual impact on the audience, I decided to attend another concert organised by the organisers – BBC Prom. This time I chose an influential solo pianist (with a certain level of quality assurance) – Wang Yujia’s piano recital, also held at the Royal Albert hall.
The most intuitive way to tell if this concert is a big hit or not is by the price of the tickets and the ease of purchase. Those who are classically inclined will have been informed about the concert in advance – official emails, social media, friends, etc. The seating area I purchased this time was similar to the previous one, and I was running out of seats at the time of the seating selection step. This time I invited the same volunteer, S, to attend with me.
When I arrived at the concert hall for ticket check, the audience was noticeably larger than the last time. Upon entering the venue, unlike last time, the whole venue was almost full and the middle standing room area was almost full of people.
feedback from volunteer：
How do you feel this concert compare to the first one?
S: The music in this performance was obviously more engaging than the previous one and it felt like it demanded a great deal of professionalism from the musicians, might be different playlist. Although I don’t know classical music, I could clearly sense that the pianist was more professional and sophisticated in her technique, while her emotional expression of the repertoire was more fluid and intense.
Will you start following this musician?
S:Yes, her technique is amazing, I want to find the recording from the official bbc website tomorrow and listen to it again and again at home.
Will you listen the playlist again?
S:Of course! For me I prefer interesting tunes like tonight’s. I can see that the tunes in the playlist are also technically demanding and I’m surprised that the composer was able to write such complex and interesting tunes.
Do you keep track of official promotions and ticket information?
S: After these two different concerts, I think I’ll definitely be looking at higher quality concerts in the future, so I’ll be looking at different official channels, like Royal Albert hall, London West End Opera and so on.
Feedback from myself：
Words alone may be very tedious to describe, I was shocked at the time, curious how a piano, with ten fingers, could burst with such power and artistic impact. With just one piano, she played with a level of fullness comparable to that of a symphony orchestra. My musical audio-visual experience and immersion was unparalleled, compared to the first concert. It was easy to observe that the audience was significantly more attentive than in the first performance, and it was also easy to determine whether the applause was ceremonial or from the heart. Through this concert, I felt that the professionalism of the musicians does infect the audience very viscerally, but whether or not the audience has the relevant expertise does not affect their judgement and appreciation of classical music. High quality classical music may be more likely to interest people who are encountering it for the first time, and I think this points me in the direction of – researching how to discover and promote high quality classical music.
After completing today’s tutorial, I gained a variety of different levels of feedback from Sasha. First of all, my survey is very uncritical on an academic level. This is reflected in the choice of words, although English is not my mother language, I at least want to be unambiguous on an academic level. And then there are details of better academic habits that need to be developed, these are some basic points.
In addition, Sasha made some constructive suggestions about my subject, such as clarifying the definition of the young people’s group in the subject, which made me more targeted in my research and intervention, and it was these details which helped me to think in a more refined way.
He also targeted some of his views and questions to help me broaden my perspective in order to think holistically, mainly on the following points (notes from class):
Collect accurate data
Communication between volunteers
Observe the methods to volunteers/ which one is more effective
Established the methods between them
Try different methods
Research –
Sales of classical music
Young people’s lifestyle
Young musicians interview
Interview of music teachers
What other people(other musicians) have done/
(BBC music, to push young people to listen to classic music
These suggestions helped me to target my issue and understand the subject deeper. I will then organically integrate these suggestions into my intervention in a realistic way.
BBC Proms
Following Sasha’s suggestion, I tried to find out if there was now a marketing/commercial act to promote classical music for young people. I found the project BBC Proms
The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in central London. The Proms were founded in 1895, and are now organised and broadcast by the BBC. Each season consists of concerts in the Royal Albert Hall, chamber music concerts at Cadogan Hall, additional Proms in the Park events across the UK on the Last Night of the Proms, and associated educational and children’s events. The season is a significant event in British culture and in classical music. Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek described the Proms as “the world’s largest and most democratic musical festival”.
This project is very good for young people and those with limited knowledge of classical concerts. Firstly, it is ticket prices is affordable (the cheapest seat is £8.5, standing is £7.12), and it does not give clear instructions or requirements on the dress-code of the audience. Neither do the strict rules that listeners need to follow to listen to a concert seem to exist (e.g. applause only during a fixed interval). In the very centre of the venue, the middle seat has been removed and is a standing area. This best view is standing room only (the lowest price in the house) and the audience is allowed to bring in their own drinks and snacks. This initiative has significantly lowered the threshold for classical concerts, allowing for a more relaxed attendance.
I found two volunteers who had confirmed their participation in my intervention, to having them to come to the concert together.
Links are details of the concerts that we attended.
S: Coming to a concert hall is very different from playing it at home. The visual and auditory experience is much better, and the conductor interacts with you, so you feel more involved.
N: The selection was a bit formal for me, but the atmosphere was very relaxed, so I didn’t feel constrained.
Did you change the view of classical music after you have been to this concert?
S: I find that the threshold for appreciating classical music doesn’t seem to be as high as I previously thought, and I’m very much immersed in and enjoy some of the pieces. I think it has to do with personal preference and experience.
N:I used to find classical music boring and difficult to understand, but I found that listening to classical music didn’t seem to require me to have expertise. The biggest reward is that I can feel a peace that I can’t feel in other music.
Will you come to classical music concert again?
S: Definitely, but I’ll pick authors and pieces I know well, like Beethoven, Mozart and so on.
N:Yes, but depending on my mood and needs at the time.
Feedback and observation from myself:
This concert gave me a different feeling from traditional concerts. For a start it was not as serious as a traditional classical concert, but had an overall relaxed atmosphere. The audience was free to bring snacks and drinks into the venue, and could even sit or lie down in the standing area in the centre of the venue. From my observations, it seems that young people ( aged 20-30) constitute about 30%-40% of the audience, which is higher than the figures in my previous research. The whole concert will be broadcast live on the official BBC channel and the recording will be uploaded on the second day, which is free. This also greatly expands the reach of classical music and makes it approachable to the public.
According to my companions, the performance of this concert may not have been of a standard comparable to that of the masters, which they could intuitively perceive but could not analyse and clarify the reasons for. This shows that, even with a limited knowledge of classical music, the listener has the most basic perception and judgement. I should not have underestimated the rendering of the music before, and to my some surprise, in the middle of the concert, you could clearly tell how the audience felt about the melody by their reactions and expressions (note the distinction to be made with concert etiquette). On a public level, the repertoire for this concert was a selection of more familiar pieces that are more suitable for an introduction. In contrast to the niche repertoire, the audience may easily find it boring and obscure in the absence of knowledge, and I will do measures on this aspect in the subsequent intervention in order to confirm this suspicion.
From my personal point of view, this concert is very good for people with limited knowledge of classical music and for young people. This is mainly due to its low ticket price, ease of entry and relaxed atmosphere. The BBC is also a solid platform in terms of mass appeal and distribution, which maximises its impact. I think this project is a very good example for my project in general, and I will follow up on this project to learn and make a breakthrough.
