Challenging Performance: Classical Music Performance Norms and How to Escape Them

The 'Dido & Belinda' audiences' questionnaire suggests that the audiences we can already see emerging with new venues and new forms of presentation are likely to be sympathetic to much more creative i...

31 Dec 202410min

Why does classical music figure so infrequently in media that regularly discuss art and theatre at a sophisticated level? GIven a working environment supportive of creative, topical interpretation, pe...

31 Dec 20247min

Like all music, classical music creates virtual others, usually others with whom we are already quite familiar. With goodwill and a determination to be inclusive and welcoming of difference, non-norma...

31 Dec 20242min

The UN Human Rights Council advocates ‘the right ... to freely ... contribute to artistic expressions and creations'. This the classical music business does not currently permit. There’s no excuse for...

31 Dec 20245min

Accepting that, as a classical musician, one has little agency (freedom to choose and the authority to act) makes the job less dispiriting. But that lack of agency is still (and quite rightly) felt as...

23 Dec 202418min

Empirical research shows, again and again, that damage to musicians' physical and mental health is integral to classical music ideology and practice, and appears to be considered by many as a necessar...

23 Dec 202425min

Despite it being evidently untrue, the law suppose that the composer is the only creator, the performer merely a reproducer. Consequently, performers receive no royalty for their creative part in musi...

23 Dec 202414min

A brief introduction to Part 3 of Challenging Performance (chapters 18–27), which looks at how creative and transgressive performances can be made, and at how people respond to them.

23 Dec 20242min