Concerts in our living rooms

Arguably, contemporary classical music is one of the trickiest artforms to attract new audiences to, seeming to overstretch the appetite of even the hardiest concert-goers. I know this because I have first-hand experience from a variety of perspectives: from personal experience as a producer of new music trying to secure gigs in small to mid-scale venues, as an audience member across a range of venues, and as a musician wanting access to music by living composers. Regional venues explain that they just can’t sell enough tickets to make it worthwhile, while larger venues can often be running at around 30% to 50% capacity, and if you are trying to find a vocal score by George Crumb (avant garde composer who has straddled the twenty-first century), well, good luck!

The concert hall is dead, but long live new platforms for consuming music? Well, we have certainly seen a drive across most artforms to address the psycho-geography of arts spaces with foyer events, the notion of the gallery turned inside out, and theatre productions that begin en route to the show. New music has also carved its own path finding platforms in art galleries, nightclubs and domestic spaces.

we have reached a wider demographic than any we could have ever attracted at a standard venue

I have been running one such project, supported by Ideas Test, one of 21 programmes funded by Arts Council England (ACE) which experiment with new ways to encourage participation in the arts in areas of the UK where engagement is significantly lower than the national average. Davy Jones’ Locker brings music by living composers into people’s living rooms, introducing some very unfamiliar music into spaces that are intimate, comfortable and a far cry from an ‘arts space’.

Live music hosted in domestic spaces is not a new idea by any means. Indeed, the Victorians created a whole cultural scene around the idea. The surface results are what one might anticipate: audiences cite greater comfort and are more prepared at the point of invitation to make a commitment to attending. And both the hosts and their visitors indicate a greater understanding and affinity with the works and their composers by the end of performances. So far so good, but nothing too out of the ordinary. However, there are some elements to a Davy Jones’ Locker experience that, when packaged together, offer an interesting insight into the gradual cultivation of a very committed and adventurous new audience for contemporary music and the wider arts.

Having secured some adventurous souls through a mix of word of mouth, appeals through local arts and non-arts networks and the media, we are ready to launch each series in earnest. We start with the premise that the concert hosts (aka armchair promoters) are the experts when it comes to communicating with their friends and neighbours. They know better than any marketing guru how to encourage their peers to come along and try. So, apart from an image and a few suggested phrases if requested, we ask our hosts to be responsible for all elements of identifying and recruiting their audience for the night. The only caveats that we put on it are that there have to be at least eight people in attendance, and that if possible hosts shoud invite at least one neighbour who they would like to get to know better and one person who they think may not normally attend live music events.

Some hosts have really bitten the bullet and made it a street party event, inviting everyone in their road, regardless of music persuasion. Others have introduced us to a largely rock and roll-loving audience. Of one thing I am sure: this apparently arbitrary approach has meant that we have reached a wider demographic than any we could have ever attracted at a standard venue. Given that a key driver for Ideas Test is that projects reach people who have little or no engagement with the artform in question we are confident that this funding investment is doing what it is meant to.

At all our living room events we aim for a rough 60/40 split between performance of music and discussion between performers and the audience. Event timings need to be managed, but it does wonders for diminishing the sense of who is the expert in the room, and relinquishes people from the burden of being a submissive and adulatory public. We have developed several devices to help kick-start conversation if it is slow, and also to free it up if dialogue starts to get gripped by one person. The devices are all designed to pivot attention back to contemporary music, how it is made and how we consume it. But I should add here that the project deliberately commissions musicians who have large measures of generosity and humility – people who want to share what they know, but who can do so without giving a lecture. Indeed, Davy Jones Locker is not an educational project where we are trying to teach the audience to enjoy new music. It is much more about offering an opportunity where both performers and audiences can share thoughts, questions and observations.

With a view to sustainability, we have been asking for a donation contribution at recent Locker events, asking people to think about what they might normally be prepared to pay for such an event and to give to that end if they are able. We have been amazed and delighted to witness a very healthy response – the biggest signal so far that there is an interested and committed audience for new music. Now, having started to discover that audience, we need to ensure that the paths to their future consumption remain relevant, appropriately signposted and most of all that we take as much joy in hearing from them as they do in listening to us.

Tania Holland Williams is an interdisciplinary artist and opera activist.
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