[Adrian Curtin]

Event date: December 13, 2023

Submission deadline: September 1, 2023

Orchestras around the world are conducting experiments related to performance, to the constitution of the orchestra, and to its operation. Professional classical music ensembles, like many other organisations and institutions in the cultural sector, face an existential challenge in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, perennial funding concerns, and the climate crisis. The status quo is unsustainable and perhaps also undesirable, at least in part. The pandemic exposed the ‘(fr)agility’ of orchestras – their vulnerability, but also their adaptability (Mertens 2021). Novel approaches to re-presenting, and even reimagining, the orchestra might assist organisations to remain solvent and responsive to contemporary cultural preferences and concerns. Orchestral experimentation can also be regarded as an organic development within the tradition of Western art music rather than a reaction to economic circumstances.

Orchestras are experimenting with the standard concert format inherited from the nineteenth century and re-thinking how concerts are presented, how musicians perform, what they perform, where performance can occur, and the role of the audience in the co-creation of the live event (Tröndle 2020). Orchestras exploring these possibilities may collaborate with artists from other disciplines, including theatre, dance, film, and visual art in the creation of generically hybrid work that challenges conventional understanding of the orchestra. The work produced can attract new audiences, including people who would not normally attend a regular orchestra concert in a concert hall.

Groups are also experimenting with the constitution of an orchestra, how it functions, and the work that it does. For example, the UK-based Paraorchestra, which comprises musicians with and without disabilities, challenges normative assumptions about what an orchestra looks and sounds like, what it contains, and the music it performs. Paraorchestra regularly includes an eclectic mix of instruments from different cultural traditions, electronic instruments, electrically amplified instruments, vocalists, and virtual instruments that enable people to make synthesised sounds with the assistance of a computer. Relatedly, Multi-Story Orchestra, which performs in an experimental civic space located in a car park in East London, creates new work by engaging in collective composition with young people from the community in which it is based.

How is orchestral experimentation enabled or constrained by organisational structure and size, employment of full-time players or freelancers, funding and revenue, institutional history, amateur or professional status, locality, and audience preferences? Presentations are invited about the following topics:

• Experimentation with the presentation of orchestra concerts
• Cross-artform collaboration involving orchestras
• Unconventional orchestra configurations and working methods
• Developments in training orchestral musicians for non-traditional performance practices
• Innovation in funding practices and organisational structures involving orchestras

 

Participants in this online symposium, which is part of a British Academy-funded research project, are invited to engage any of these issues, or related topics, with reference to their own research or professional practice. Presentations should last for 20 minutes (with 10 minutes for discussion) and can have flexible formats (e.g., standard paper, video essay, audio paper, PechaKucha, live interview or dialogue, creative response). Presentation materials may be pre-circulated, upon request. A roundtable discussion will conclude the event. The symposium, which will take place on Wednesday, December 13, 2023, will be held online and will be open to the public (upon registration of interest). Contributions from research students, independent scholars, academics with institutional affiliation, and artists/practitioners are welcome. There will be no registration fee.

Proposals should include a presentation title, an abstract of 300 words maximum, and a short biography. Proposals should be submitted to a.curtin – at – exeter.ac.uk by September 1, 2023. Please use ‘Symposium Proposal’ as the subject line of your email. For more information on the associated research project, see: https://sites.exeter.ac.uk/orchestraltheatre/.

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