Experiences of orchestral concerts through the eyes and ears of children

Experiences of orchestral concerts through the eyes and ears of children

Concerts with emphasis on education through pedagogy and outreach are increasingly becoming vital parts of strategy to secure sustainable audiences for music and performing arts organisations. Yet, despite prevalent practice, relatively little is known of the experiences of audiences and listeners attending these education events, let alone how or if what is intended by concert curators translates into meaningful music learning and engagement. As such, now more than ever, to see and hear music and performing arts events through the eyes of the audience, in all their diversity, is essential to inform intentional event design and the development of how pedagogy is considered in the context of concert and performing arts event curation.

This presentation will report key findings from a research study undertaken with child and adult audience members who attended and participated in interactive learning concerts given by a community orchestra in regional Australia. The concerts aim to target families with children and are held annually in partnership with local government, childcare centres, and the major professional performance venue in the region as part of a school holiday arts festival for children. The concerts are designed by teaching artists who in addition to having backgrounds in music education also have experience and skill in conducting research on audience and listener experiences.

To understand the concert experience through the eyes of a child, children of varying ages up to 10 years old were invited to draw a picture after the concert. The children were prompted using statements to elicit what their most memorable and valuable parts of the concert were in terms of learning about music. Having completed the drawing, the children were then invited to explain and point out what they drew to a member of the research team as part of a video and audio recorded unstructured interview. To complement this data set, adult audience members were also surveyed at the end of the concert using a paper based quali-quant instrument which asked about what they observed about their children during the concert. The findings provide a unique approach to gathering firsthand accounts of orchestral concerts and valuable insight into how children experience and learn in concert settings for arts organisers and educators.

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