Abstract

I have the impression that many of the elements that are supposed to provide access to music actually impoverish our relationship with it. Michel Foucault, “Contemporary Music and the Public” 1 As a theory discourse, audience development offers suggestions about changes to arts organizations, such as the orchestra concert. At the same time, these proposals are rather ambiguous about the underlying aesthetical ideals. However, when we read closely, ideas of the listening subject as a consumer who demands more accessibility and more comfortable musical engagement appear to be the main doctrines of the prevailing audience development theory. The comfort concept is promoted by audience development theorists such as Heather Maitland, who defines audience development activity to include helping people to feel comfortable with the conventions shaping the presentation of the arts and even changing those conventions in order for more people to feel comfortable. In a similar way, Tim Baker explains that the value of concerts as perceived by potential guests is undermined by what they see as areas of risk. Consequently, the question arises if the classical music listener concepts of a “consumer” or a “customer,” which are favored by the market-transaction conception of musical experience, necessarily lead us to think of audience development in terms of comfort and risk aversion. This article suggest that audience development is a much broader subject than is usually recognized and far too important for the future of the art form to be theorized solely in terms of dominant marketing conceptions.