Borderlands: Classical Music and Society
Online Symposium, 21-22 April 2022
In an effort to make classical music relevant to a wider portion of society, institutions and musicians are increasingly seeking new ways of engaging with partners, social themes and other types of music. Topics such as climate change, diversity and education are seeing an explosion of energy and attention, and organizations are seeking ways to bring these to the forefront in artistic as well as practical ways.
Such attempts are often explicitly placed as opening up classical music to new themes, locations and people. They are attempts to expand the borders of the discipline. The 2022 MCICM symposium critically examined this area of interaction between classical music and society, exploring initiatives that seek to blur the traditional borders of classical music practice, while also discussing how such borders are still rigorously policed in certain circumstances.
While a 'border' has been described between classical music and society, this symposium also seeked to question whether such inside/outside divisions are accurate or helpful when considering the practice. The orchestra, for example, is a social entity with social dynamics at play both within and outwith the organisation. There is no binary between music and society but a complex web of interactions and networks.
To see the videos of the sessions, please visit our symposium page.
Programme Committee:
- Prof Peter Peters, Director Maastricht Centre for the Innovation of Classical Music, Maastricht University.
- Dr Stefan Rosu, Intendant philharmonie zuidnederland.
- Dr Ruth Benschop, Professor at Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, Research Centre Autonomy of the Arts and the Public Sphere.
- Mette Laugs, Head of Programme Classical 1, Conservatorium Maastricht
- Dr Neil T. Smith, Postdoctoral researcher, Maastricht University.
- Karoly Molina, MA, Research assistant, Maastricht University.
The Maastricht Centre for the Innovation of Classical Music (MCICM) aims to study the dynamics of changing classical music practices and their societal contexts, and to actively shape classical music futures. The centre is a collaboration between philharmonie zuidnederland, Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, and Maastricht University. We combine academic research on innovation of performance practices with artistic research to renew classical music practices and music education in artistically relevant ways.
