About This Project

What is a concert? “One should essentially see concerts as a means of communication, as animated contact between active participants, be they listeners or creators.” So claimed the composer Pierre Boulez. We will explore the interpersonal communication that takes place in different classical concert formats, and how the social connections formed during live performance can affect the experience of classical music.

You can attend two of the concerts remotely and get involved with our experiment!

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Previous research has shown that the majority of people have had their most powerful experiences of music at live events in the presence of others. Interpersonal connection therefore plays an important role in musical experience. However, what remains unclear is exactly how and under what conditions this feeling of interpersonal connection during a musical performance occurs.

We want to investigate empirically the impact of interpersonal distance between the musicians and the audience on a live performance of classical music and to illuminate how the interpersonal connections that are formed during live performance can influence the musical experience.

What is the significance of this project?

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently highlighted loneliness as a pressing health threat and encouraged the prioritization of social connection and the acceleration of efforts to scale up solutions. In our project, we want to address on the social connection in live music by exploring interpersonal connection dynamics in live music. Findings from this project can contribute to the development of digital concert culture by investigating whether digital communication technology can be used to bridge the physical and psychological distance between people and enable to provide a social connection in live music in the digital world.

What are the goals of the project?

The main aim is to gain a better understanding of the dynamics of interpersonal connections in live (digital) concerts and to provide greater insights into the digital development of concert culture by exploring the effects of interpersonal distance on a musical sharing experience.
For this purpose, we will organize 7 live concerts to collect data from both the audience and the musicians: Data from the audience regarding their concert experience using a self-developed measurement tool and data from the musicians regarding their performance experience by interviewing them. After collecting this data, we will compare the results from different concert settings to explore the impact of interpersonal distance between musicians and audience on live performance.