Artful Participation
The Artful Participation project was a four-year project, funded by NOW/SIA, in which researchers together with musicians and staff from philharmonie zuidnederland seeks to further innovate the practice of symphonic classical music by asking what it means to participate in it as an audience.
The project ran from 2017 to 2021. Artful Participation was a collaboration between philharmonie zuidnederland, Maastricht University, and Zuyd University of Applied Science (the research centre for Arts, Autonomy & the Public Sphere, and Conservatorium Maastricht).
The representatives of each of the partners for the project are Dr. Ruth Benschop, lector at Zuyd University, Dr. Peter Peters, professor at Maastricht University, and Dr. Stefan Rosu, intendant philharmonie zuidnederland. In addition, Dr. Ties van de Werff joined as postdoc, Veerle Spronck as PhD candidate and Imogen Eve as musician researcher.
The researchers focused on three main areas of interest which are outlined below.
Veerle Spronck conducted ethnographic research in order to closely examine how four symphonic orchestras in the Netherlands are innovating participation in their everyday practices. In researching these orchestras, she questions how participation varies across actors and activities, how the materiality of symphonic music shapes the possibilities for participation, and how new meanings and values emerge when orchestras are innovating participation.
Ties van de Werff’s postdoc focused on learning from observing and experimenting. Together with musicians and staff from philharmonie zuidnederland, Ties worked on five experiments and observed three experimental concerts with the objective of learning what is needed to take the audience seriously as a potential artistic partner in orchestral practice.
Imogen Eve, the musician researcher within the project, worked together with van de Werff designing the experiments with philharmonie zuidnederland. In addition to her role with the experiments, Eve also worked at Conservatorium Maastricht coaching Master students. In her publication ‘The Same but Differently’ Eve explores (and proposes) new rituals, perspectives and skills which can be fostered by classical musicians in order to become more reflexive, and flexible, performers.
The outcome of this project is available on the Artful Participation website.
Furthermore, the team presented their research during an online event on 20 October 2021.
Publications
Eve, I. (2020). The Same but Differently. Maastricht: Lectoraat AOK, Zuyd Hogeschool/MCICM. https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/publication-same-differently-imogen-eve
Peters, P. (2022). Achter de schermen. de Klank. Magazine van orkest en vrienden philharmonie zuidnederland, 9(3), 45. https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/behind-scenes
Peters, P. (2021). Musici van morgen. de Klank. Magazine van orkest en vrienden philharmonie zuidnederland, 9(3), 45. https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/musicians-tomorrow
Peters, P.F. (2019). Het orkest als laboratorium. de Klank. Magazine van orkest en vrienden philharmonie zuidnederland, 6(4), 30.
Peters, P.F. (2019). Mahler aan de stamtafel. de Klank. Magazine van orkest en vrienden philharmonie zuidnederland, 7(1), 61.
Peters, P. (2019). Anders luisteren naar Beethoven. de Klank. Magazine van orkest en vrienden philharmonie zuidnederland, 7(2), 45. https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/listening-beethoven-differently
Peters, P.F., I. Eve & T. van de Werff. (2020). Hoe klinkt Maastricht Noordwest? de Klank. Magazine van orkest en vrienden philharmonie zuidnederland, 7(4), 39. https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/how-does-maastricht-northwest-sound
Peters, P.F., Rosu, S. & Benschop, R. (2020). The Researching Orchestra: Innovative collaborations between symphonic orchestras and knowledge institutions. In Tröndle, M. (Ed.). Classical Concert Studies: A Companion to Contemporary Research and Performance (pp. 342-350). London: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003013839-42/researching-orchestra-christoph-seibert-jutta-toelle-melanie-wald-fuhrmann
Peters, P., & van de Werff, T. (2021). Een lerend orkest. de Klank. Magazine van orkest en vrienden philharmonie zuidnederland, 8(2), 26-26. https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/learning-orchestra
Peters, P.F., T. van de Werff & I. Eve. (2020). Een salon voor de vrienden. de Klank. Magazine van orkest en vrienden philharmonie zuidnederland, 7(3), 26. https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/peoples-salon
Peters, P., & van de Werff, T. (2020). Digitale flessenpost. de Klank. Magazine van orkest en vrienden philharmonie zuidnederland, 23. https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/digital-message-bottle
Peters, P.F., T. van de Werff, R. Benschop and I. Eve. (2022). Artful innovation: How to experiment in symphonic music practice. In Chaker, Sarah & Petri-Preis, Axel (eds.), Tuning Up – Innovative Potentials of Musikvermittlung. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839456811-014
Peters, P.F., Werff, T. van de. & Eve, I. (2022). The People’s Salon: A pragmatist approach to audience participation in symphonic music. In: Benschop, R., Saaze, V. van., Sitzia & Rausch, C. (Eds.) Participatory Practices in Arts and Heritage: Learning Through and from Collaboration. Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-05694-9
Peters, P.F., T. van de Werff & I. Eve. (2020). Een salon voor de vrienden. de Klank. Magazine van orkest en vrienden philharmonie zuidnederland, 7(3), 26. https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/peoples-salon
Peters, P., van de Werff, T., Eve, I., & Roeden, J. (2023). Doing Collaborative Research on Symphonic Orchestra Audiences: Interventionist Ethnography of Music Practices. In K. Bijsterveld, & A. Swinnen (Eds.), Interdisciplinarity in the Scholarly Life Cycle : Learning by Example in Humanities and Social Science Research (pp. 253-271). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-11108-2_14
Spronck, V. (2022). Listen closely: Innovating audience participation in symphonic music. [Doctoral Thesis, Maastricht University]. Maastricht University. https://doi.org/10.26481/dis.20220706vs
Spronck, V. (2022). Beethoven as open dialogue: Doing participation differently in symphonic music? In: Benschop, R., Rausch, C., Sitzia, E. and Van Saaze, V. (Eds.). Participatory Practices in Arts and Heritage: Learning Through and from Collaboration. Springer. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-05694-9_12
Spronck, V. (2021). Luisteren als een etnograaf. de Klank. Magazine van orkest en vrienden philharmonie zuidnederland, 8(3), 45. https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/listening-etnographer
Spronck, V. (2020). We dreigen het cultuurpubliek te vergeten. Trouw, 27 April. https://www.trouw.nl/opinie/we-dreigen-het-cultuurpubliek-te-vergeten~b55a6667/
Spronck, V. (2019). A Laboratory for Performance Practice: The Case of MusicExperiment21,In: P. De Assis & L. D’Errico (Eds.). Artistic Research: Charting a Field in Expansion,Washington DC: Rowman & Littlefield. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781786611499/Artistic-Research-Charting-a-Field-in-Expansion
Spronck, V., Peters, P.F. & Werff, T. van de. (2021). Empty Minds: Innovating Audience Participation in Symphonic Practice. Science as Culture, 30(2), 216-236. (Special Issue on Experimenting Participatory Innovation). DOI: 10.1080/09505431.2021.1893681
Van de Werff, T. (2020). Een tijdelijk en gretig publiekje. Retrieved from: http://corona- kunst.nl/ties-van-de-werff-een-tijdelijk-en-gewillig-publiekje/
Van de Werff, T. Eve, I. & Spronck, V. (2023) Experiments in Participation: performing audiences in the symphony orchestra practice. In Dromey, Chris (ed.) The Routledge Companion to Applied Musicology. London: Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Companion-to-Applied-Musicology/Dromey/p/book/9780367488246
Werff, T. van de., Molina, K. & Peters, P.F., (2021). Artful Participation. Experiments in Audience Participation. https://artfulparticipation.nl/
Van de Werff, T. and I. Pasmans. (2019) Music in the Making: an open and collaborative experiment at Conservatorium Maastricht. In Sætre, Jon Helge & Gies, Stefan (eds.), Centre for Excellence in Music Performance Education publication series, Oslo: Norwegian Academy of Music. https://nmh.brage.unit.no/nmh-xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2642235/Becoming_Musicians_Gies_%26_Saetre_%28Eds.%29_web.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Van de Werff, T. & Peters, P. (2022). The People’s Salon: A pragmatist approach to audience participation in symphonic music. In Benschop et al. (eds), Participatory Practices in Art and Cultural Heritage: Learning Through and from Collaboration. Maastricht: MACCH. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-05694-9
Van de Werff, T., Smith, N.T., Rosu, S., Peters, P. (2021) Missing the Audience: Online musicking in times of Covid-19. Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy, https://doi.org/10.14361/zkmm-2021-0107