(Re)positioning Modern Concert Music In Contemporary Society
In 2016, Marcel Cobussen successfully applied for two trainee positions at ACPA, funded by the Humanities Research Traineeship Programme at Leiden University. One of the results, a multi-media essay 'In Search of the Public. Exploring Contemporary Performance Practices of Classical Music in The Netherlands' by Friederike Pank is now publicly available on the Research Catalogue.
The research topic and question guiding these two ACPA traineeships was formulated as follows: How can contemporary performance practices be restructured, first to engage a broader audience and second to increase societal importance? Point of departure was that contemporary composed music has often been critiqued – among others by funds, sponsors, and festival organizers – for having lost contact with their audiences. This music seems to have become increasingly a pursuit of a privileged, well-situated, and higher educated public, and is most often confined to the elitist space of concert halls.
Read more about this traineeship.