Classical music as contemporary socio-cultural practice:
critical perspectives
Friday 23 May 2014, 9.15am – 6.15pm, Council Room, King’s College London.
Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Goldsmiths, University of London.
Programme including Abstracts.
9.15am: Registration and coffee
9.30 - 11am: Welcome and session one. Professional lives: Open access or a closed shop?
Chair: Hettie Malcolmson, Southampton University
Gender in classical music practice: exploring older and newer forms of inequalities
Christina Scharff, King’s College London
This paper will explore and analyse gender inequalities in the classical music profession. The first part of the paper will
provide a short overview of existing inequalities, which for example relate to under-representation, vertical and
horizontal segregation, and the sexualisation of female players. Second, the paper will explore why these inequalities
persist. By drawing on existing research on cultural work, neoliberalism and postfeminism, I will demonstrate how and
why particular features of classical music work help perpetuate, rather than challenge, existing inequalities. The
flexibility and informality that characterises work in the cultural sector, as well as the reliance on networks, tend to
disadvantage women, as well as players from working-class and minority-ethnic backgrounds. Against the backdrop of
this critical analysis, the paper will conclude by challenging the unspeakability of inequalities in the classical music
profession and, indeed, the cultural sector at large. As Rosalind Gill has recently argued, inequalities may in part be
reproduced through their very unspeakability. By drawing on existing and original research, this paper will attempt to
bring these inequalities to the fore in the hope that such an analysis will instigate a more informed debate on
contemporary classical music practice.
The unchanging face of classical music: A reflective perspective on diversity and access
Hadiya Morris, Royal College of Music
The Guardian’s Stephen Moss once described the demographic of the average classical music audience as being
“getting on in years, retired, white, middle class” (Moss, 2007). The legitimacy of this character, remarkably unchanged
throughout history, has often been challenged academically with regards to gender and class, with thinkers such as
Susan McClary and Pierre Bourdieu presenting varying understandings of them in music and society. Race, however,
has largely been
avoided in the academic forum, often left to the media to question and dispute. With statement such as the
aforementioned by Moss and headlines such as ‘Why are our orchestras so white?’ (Day, 2008), the conversation often
takes the destructive tone of a critique of classical music’s elitism and exclusivity as opposed to constructive reviews of
how this tradition can be more effectively integrated into our ever-changing contemporary society.
By bringing together research I, other musicologists, sociologists and philosophers have conducted and by offering my
reflections of working in the music education as evidence, I would like to offer an alternative approach to this issue of
classical music’s lack of access and diversity by deconstructing it as being an issue. Basing my reflection not solely on
empirical research or sociological assumption but on organic, in situ observations, I hope to discuss the challenges in
changing classical music’s current demographic whilst suggesting a new narrative on what the next generation of
classical musicians could look like and why.
DAY, E., 2008. ‘Why are our orchestras so white?’ The Observer [online],
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2008/sep/14/music.classicalmusicandopera
MOSS, S., 2007, ‘Who is in the audience at a classical concert?’ The Guardian [online],
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/oct/05/classicalmusicandopera1
The London orchestra as a prestige economy
Francesca Carpos, Institute of Education
As a professional orchestral bassoon player, I began to consider my experience of the orchestral community. My
beliefs contained assumptions that appeared to thrive on ambiguity derived from, amongst other things, colloquial
expressions such as ‘old boys’ network’. I believed that this expression described the ways that networking with
‘useful’ people, such as Freemasons, might be helpful in order for musicians to become successful. I began to question
whether musicians perceived ‘prestige-seeking’ behaviour as necessary in order to gain work and therefore money.
Competition between self-employed musicians is inevitable, because there is only so much work that can go around,
and musicians need to consider ‘what you need to do to get ahead’. A central feature of this study is consideration of the
possible contribution of the concept of a ‘Prestige Economy’ (Bascom and Herskovits, 1948; English, 2005; Blackmore
and Kandiko, 2011), as a framework for illuminating perceptions of musicians in their orchestral world. Ways of
understanding the nature of an individual’s interaction with others in an organizational setting is explored through the
lens of this theory; and the model of a prestige economy may allow insight into the vulnerabilities, inequalities and
tensions of orchestral life.
11.00-11.30am: Morning tea
11.30am-1pm: Session two. Music education and value
Chair: Chloe Alaghband-Zadeh, University of Cambridge
The rehearsal as cultural practice: the intimacy of authority in youth music groups
Anna Bull, Goldsmiths, University of London
This paper examines how the authority of the male conductor is constructed and experienced in youth classical music
groups. Drawing on ethnographic work with a youth choir and two youth orchestras, it introduces three different modes
of authority which conductors used in rehearsals: the ‘people manager’, the ‘charismatic charmer’, and the ‘cult of
personality’. Conductors deliberately crafted these modes of authority, which relied on the embodied intimacy of this
musical practice.
This craft draws on gendered patterns of power and desire. This was particularly evident in one of the choral groups in
my research, where it was enacted through the singers’ bodies mirroring the body of the male conductor. As a
consequence of these gendered power dynamics, the girls in this choir talked about their conductor differently from the
boys. While some girls experienced correction from the conductor as a form of gendered humiliation, or more positively
as a pleasurable submission, these discourses were absent from the boys’ accounts. Despite the discomfort or resistance
some of the young people voiced to me in private, they approached rehearsals with a willing trust which gave the public
appearance of their consent to his authority. This enables this structure of authority to function uninterrupted.
Venezuela’s El Sistema: social inclusion or exclusion?
Geoff Baker, Royal Holloway, University of London
Social inclusion has become the primary raison d’être for Venezuela’s El Sistema and its unprecedented funding, yet
has received remarkably little critical attention in this context. This paper draws on a year of ethnographic fieldwork in
Venezuela to examine the relationship between claims and realities, going beyond official narratives to take account of
the perspectives of ordinary participants and critical observers. It examines the inclusivity of El Sistema’s practices,
questioning whether the symphony orchestra and a competitive pre-professional program, both of which produce
stratification, serve as motors of social inclusion. The program fosters tribalism but may weaken ties between young
musicians and other social networks, principally their school peer group and family. El Sistema also sets up an
adversarial dynamic with surrounding communities, which are treated as a problem rather than a partner. The program’s
language of “escape” and “rescue” casts participants’ social context in the role of persecutor; collective activity does not
therefore equate to social integration. Finally, the relationship between social and cultural inclusion is examined. A
program that favours classical music and marginalizes local cultural forms may not serve as an effective source of
inclusion.
‘In Harmony-Sistema England’ and cultural value
Mark Rimmer, University of East Anglia
This presentation will discuss empirical findings from an AHRC-sponsored research project designed to explore
questions of cultural value in relation to In Harmony-Sistema England (hereafter IHSE), a social and music education
programme whose approach and philosophy derives from the Venezuelan ‘El Sistema’ model. This model emphasizes
intensive ensemble participation, group learning, peer teaching and a commitment to musical learning. In 2009 three
pilot IHSE projects were developed in England and in 2011 the programme was extended such that today there are a
total of seven IHSE projects operating across England. What is of particular interest, in terms of questions of cultural
value, is that where most approaches to youth-focussed music participation initiatives in Britain have, to date, attempted
to link music to forms of social good by employing popular music forms, IHSE predominantly uses classical and folk
music, adopting a quite systematised learning approach and an orchestral model. This presentation will summarize
findings from our research project then, with particular attention on the ways in which different stakeholders understand
the forms of value embedded in their IHSE project activities.
‘Strings attached? Inclusive ensembles and non-orchestral progression’
Douglas Lonie, Research and Evaluation Manager, National Foundation for Youth Music
The term ‘inclusion’ is often uncritically adopted in music education and cultural policy, leading to a variety of
practices aiming to create or support ‘inclusive’ opportunities for young people. The Department for Education’s
National Plan for Music Education states widening participation and equality of access as key intentions of the
associated investment of public funds. However it is not made clear which specific practices this wider range of
participants should be encouraged into, or how they are expected to progress.
This paper explores definitions of inclusion as demonstrated by a selection of projects funded by the National
Foundation for Youth Music (Youth Music) which seek to support musical, personal and social progression across a
range of musical styles. Data provided by projects, as well as evidence from independent evaluations, indicate a broad
range of individual, group, and ensemble music-making taking place in out-of-school contexts across a variety of
genres. These data are compared to other nationally held data sets exploring mainstream and ‘outreach’ music
education provision. Many Youth Music projects also conceptualise and measure progression differently from formal
music education providers, drawing musical and non-musical trajectories of progression across a range of sites and over
the life-course. This non-linear and non-predetermined approach to progression is also presented as an alternative to
more traditional perceptions of progression in music.
These findings suggest that a clearer and shared understanding of both ‘inclusion’ and ‘progression’ across music
education and cultural policy will lead to a more diverse and appropriate offer for all children and young people.
1pm-2pm: Lunch (provided)
2pm-3.30pm: Session three. Traditions of practice
Chair: Ruard Absaroka, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
Classical music as enforced utopia
Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, King’s College London
In classical music composition, whatever conflicts may be engineered along the way, everything always turns out for
the best. Similarly utopian thinking underlies performance: performers see their job as to carry out faithfully their
master’s wishes, to be (as it were) brilliantly transparent; result happiness. But why should performers not have a
critical role to play in re-presenting a score, just as actors are permitted – required even – to find new meanings and new
relevance in texts? What does classical music performance tell us about ourselves that is not complacent or obedient?
And what or whom are performers obeying, the long dead composer (and what is the ethical basis for that) or a policing
system (teachers, examiners, adjudicators, critics, agents, promoters, record producers) that enforces an imaginary
tradition from childhood to grave? Starting from the evidence of early recordings, showing that composers are
misrepresented, this talk will seek to unpick some of the delusions that support classical music practice.
Performing With TINA: Theory-Practice Inconsistencies in the Classical Music Profession
Nick Wilson, King’s College London
The focus of this paper is on theory-practice inconsistency in the British classical music profession, and the ‘early music
movement’ in particular. I introduce the notion of the TINA formation, which takes its name from the theory–practice
inconsistency made (in)famous by Margaret Thatcher, namely the view that “There Is No Alternative” (TINA) to the
free market and economic liberalism. Elsewhere, a range of philosophers and sociologists, Freud, Marx, and Derrida
amongst them, has used TINA. It refers to any complex totality in which a false structure or level or belief co-exists
with a true one. We will find a TINA formation wherever there is a split between our theory and practice, or more
proverbially between our “talk and our walk.” The paper introduces ten TINAs in all, covering the relationship between
amateurs and professionals, the role of recording technology, the culture vs. commerce debate, and even in capitalism’s
underlying reliance on what I term ‘enchantment’. It is suggested that bringing these TINAs out into the open represents
a helpful step in transforming rather than reproducing structural practices and norms which otherwise don’t always
work in the best interests of classical musicians, and society more generally.
Experiences of sustaining and ceasing amateur participation in classical music
Stephanie Pitts & Katy Robinson, Sheffield University
As part of an AHRC Cultural Value project investigating lapsed and partial arts engagement, we have interviewed
amateur classical musicians who have ceased their involvement in music-making, either currently or in the past. These
‘lapsed participants’ offer a new perspective on the contribution that musical participation plays in people’s lives: how
it shapes their understanding of what it means to be a musician, affects their relationship with classical repertoire, and
competes with other demands and choices in everyday life. In this paper we will review the qualitative themes of our
study, and consider their implications for sustaining and supporting adult engagement in live classical music.
Orchestras and musical terriblism
Stephen Cottrell, City University
One of the more noticeable developments in amateur orchestral music-making since the mid 1990s has been the rise of
orchestras that describe themselves as ‘terrible’. While Alexander McCall Smith’s ‘Really Terrible Orchestra’, founded
in 1995, is often taken as the starting point of this phenomenon, some commentators have sought to locate them
historically within a tradition of English experimentalism that began with 1970s groups such as the Scratch Orchestra or
the Portsmouth Sinfonia. Whether one accepts that or not, ‘terribilism’ in orchestral playing is now claimed from
various ensembles in England and Scotland as well as in several parts of the USA. This paper will take a fresh look at
this phenomenon, and consider how this celebration of amateurism and musical disunity casts a different light on
widely-held ideals of orchestras as harmoniously organised microcosms of society.
3.30-4pm: Afternoon tea
4pm-5.30pm: Session four. Institutions and power: making space for creativity?
Chair: Juniper Hill, University of Cambridge/University of Cork
Newly Identified Creativities in the Practice of Professional Musicians: The Case for Institutional Change
Pam Burnard, Cambridge University
Our ability to imagine and invent new worlds is one of our greatest assets and the origin of all human achievement, yet
the recognition and importance of the multiple creativities that provide the driving force for professional musicians is
largely unrecognized in preparing them for the professional worlds they must navigate. Historically-linked and limited
definitions of high-art orthodoxies exalt individual creativity. In presenting a multiplicity of creativities, other than
those ascribed and mythologized by the accepted canon of ‘great composers’, this paper offers insights from research
produced by the profession for the profession; these illustrate the need for us, in our work as higher education sector
educators, to refine and accelerate institutional change. Plato said that ‘what is honoured in a society will emerge in that
society’. To nurture creativities (in those pursuing a career in music, practicing and preparing for music performance
and production, arts administration or music teaching, or any of a multitude of career options) music institutions need to
be contemporary environments in which creativities are embedded, cultivated, modelled and resourced. While we might
regard the historical legacy of creativities as being about domain specific musical processes, products and people,
nevertheless, as will be argued in this presentation, a central ingredient in successful institutions is the ingredient of
leadership. Throughout this paper, which explores insights from a large study of different types of musical creativities
(as identified in the practices of professional musicians including composers, improvisers, singer-songwriters, original
bands, DJs, live coders, and interactive sound designers), institutional leaders make decisions at a level of complexity
that requires leadership creativities to be championed in ways that provoke invention, originality, imagination,
entrepreneurialism and innovation. This is what makes new perspectives on who is professionally making the music,
where it is being made, and for whom, as significant as the generative aspect inherent in practices such as sampling,
resampling, mixing, mashing, and song writing and as important as composing, arranging, improvising and performing.
What kinds of collaborative, communal or collective venturing underpin professional musicians’ activity at the
beginning of the third millennium? An understanding of musical creativities which goes beyond the common forms of
composition and improvisation and is both collective and individualized, is an imperative. The argument here is about
the expansion of the concept of ‘music creativity’ from its outmoded singular form to its manifestations in multiple
creativities and about how institutional change can be approached.
Agency, autonomy and creative fulfilment in the lives of professional female musicians
Victoria Armstrong, St. Mary's University College
While opportunities for women have certainly improved and they are far better represented today in a range of music
sectors, Creative and Cultural Skills (2010) found that women occupy only 32.2% of all music industry related jobs,
they earn less, give up their careers sooner and experience more barriers to progression than their male counterparts. It
has been shown that while ‘creative labour’ can be rewarding and fulfilling it is also a source of (self-) exploitation, is
insecure, entails working for low or no pay through the gifting of free labour, requires high levels of commitment and
results in bulimic work patterns. Using an innovative methodological approach combining visual research methods and
digital ethnography, this paper presents the findings of an in-depth exploratory study into the working lives of five
professional British musicians. It examines the nature of their work and seeks to understand how their freelance careers
are experienced, supported and developed. Despite the largely negative picture presented in much current research
about the creative industries, the findings here suggest that the freelance musicians in this study are able to exercise
agency and experience high levels of autonomy in their musical lives in ways which enable them sustain freelance
careers which are stimulating, musically rewarding and creatively fulfilling.
Ideology, Power, and Discourse: New Music and the Power of Materialism
Lauren Redhead, Canterbury Christ Church University
The western European modernist tradition in music, here referred to as ‘New Music’, has a strong
theoretical link with a utopian ideal. This is expressed not only by its composers, performers, and
institutions but, supposedly, also in its materials and practices. However, this poststructuralist
discourse analysis of artworks of the New Music tradition reveals an investment on the behalf of
composers and institutions in an aesthetics of power which, far from the embodiment of a utopian ideal, functions as a
form of social closure: asserting privilege amongst a relatively small group of
practicing musicians and linking certain types of materiality to artistic quality. It considers how
ideology and power are manifest in artworks, the way that institutions value artworks, and the
institutionalised way that artworks are presented within the European modernist tradition. By
aligning this analysis with Jacques Rancière’s conception of an ‘aesthetic regime of the arts’ this
paper will describe how New Music requires its composers and its artworks to be both institutional and anti-institution,
materialist and anti-materialist, consistently ‘new’ and also ‘traditional’, as
exemplified by recent examples of New Music which purport to offer institutional critiques of the
New Music establishment.
Discordant Decisions: Challenging Power and Authority in Classical Music Competitions
Lisa McCormick, Haverford College
How should we explain scandals in the world of classical music? While the tendency in the media is to portray them as
isolated cases resulting from individual failings, sociological accounts would typically point either to norm breakdown
or struggles in the field of cultural production. This paper will outline an alternative view in which scandals are seen to
emerge from cracks or fluctuations in the structural differentiation that is thought to have separated aesthetic and civil
realms in contemporary society. Competitions will serve as the primary example. How do these organizations help to
create the conditions for scandal by importing civil ideals of fairness and objectivity into the identification and
recognition of artistic excellence? When they fail spectacularly to contain undue influence or to identify conflicts of
interest, what do we learn about the structure of power and authority in the music profession? How might the problems
experienced by competitions provide insight into other musical organizations blighted by scandal, such as the British
music schools that have recently been contending with allegations of sexual abuse?
5.30– 6.15pm: Concluding keynote: Professor Georgina Born, Oxford University
6.15pm: Wine reception