Music Communication

‘Music communication’, or what is known in German as Musikvermittlung, covers an extremely diverse and wide-ranging field of activities that variously fall under the headings of ‘music appreciation’, ‘music education’, ‘audience engagement’ or, to use today’s more fashionable term, ‘music outreach’. They range from concerts for special target groups (e.g. children’s concerts) to introductory lectures, meet-the-artist talks, interactive workshops and many forms of media communication (programme booklets, radio features, apps). The use of the term is anything but unambiguous, as is evident in the difficulty all publications have faced in trying to define it. Sometime it is used synonymously with what in German is called Konzertpädagogik, or ‘concert education’. This is hardly surprising, given the large market share of activities in this field. But music communication activities need not be directly related to attendance at a concert. Moreover, the term is frequently used for activities outside the school system to distinguish them from music education at school, thereby making it synonymous with the now unfashionable term ‘extracurricular music education’. [1] This overlooks the fact that ‘music communication refers not only to various activities, but also to independent fields of action and specific ways of dealing with music’. [2] Indeed, to define the multi-layered field of music communication as being ipso facto extracurricular is to fall far short of the mark. A glance at the many initiatives and formats that have emerged in this area in recent decades, and a glance at the importance of schoolchildren as a target group for music communication, reveal that it makes little sense to insist on a sharp distinction between curricular and extracurricular. [3]

Perhaps the most meaningful distinction between music communication and curricular music education lies in the emphases that the former places on the artistic and communicative element, which plays a special role in music communication as ‘artistic, educational and communicative practice’. [4] Practitioners of music communication are generally at pains to make a particular kind of music open to reception in its particular artistic context (e.g. a visit to a concert). In this case, the process of communication frequently involves professional artists, and central importance is attached to the artistic quality of the musical presentation. Like music teachers, music communicators employ educational resources in order to make it possible to learn about music and to experience it aesthetically. But rather than being restricted to musical facts and skills (i.e. the transmission of knowledge), music communication is also concerned with mediating between a style of music and the lived target group (i. e. the establishment of a connection). [5]

As the participants in music communication (unlike school instruction) first have to be enlisted, another special communicative aspect is needed. Yet the opening up of new target groups is a crucial task beyond the powers of a single individual, or even a single department: it must ultimately be tackled by a cultural institution in its entirety. Music communication is thus a cross-sector task with the potential to alter the structures and attitudes of cultural institutions in enduring ways. In this sense, communication is necessary not only toward the outside world but within the institution itself. The result is an extremely complex catalogue of requirements placed on the music communicator, who must slip into the role of ‘initiator or guide, role model or facilitator’, [6] depending on the needs of the project concerned. Ideally, the music communicator must be an artistic, educational, communicative and administrative authority all rolled into one.

The beginnings of music communication

The first attempts to engage young audiences by making a special selection of music for a classical concert date back to the 1830s, when the so-called ‘Juvenile Concerts’ took place in Boston. An increase in educational efforts at concerts became noticeable around the fin de siècle, perhaps in response to the growing in fluence of progressive education. [7] At this time Germany, too, witnessed the emergence of special concert series for children and young people. Among the concerts for schoolchildren and teachers were those mounted by the Hamburg Teachers’ Choral Society between 1898 and 1921, which were accompanied by special introductory talks by the artistic director, Richard Barth. Soon systematic thought was given to the criteria needed to make young people’s concerts successful. Here, for example, is the music educator and conductor Felix Oberborbeck, writing in 1928: ‘1) The concerts must meet all the prerequisites of youth psychology; 2) they must be given a systematic structure; and 3) they must satisfy the principles of artistic presentations in their time and location’. [8]

In the latter half of the 20th century an appreciation of the opportunities and the need for music communication gradually took hold in Germany, too, mainly owing to Anglo-American influences. One milestone was the ‘Young People’s Concerts’ offered by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, which were broadcast on television and thus available all over the world. Between 1958 and 1972 the composerconductor Leonard Bernstein devised no fewer than 53 such concerts for young people between eight and 18 years of age, functioning as conductor and moderator at once.9 Bernstein was particularly effective in combining his artistic, educational and communicative skills in this concert format in order to open the gateway to classical music for children and adolescents. Even today many people still consider him the pioneer and prototype of the music communicator. Similar formats soon emerged in the German-speaking countries, including the ‘explanatory concerts’ (Erklärkonzerte) held for children by the conductor Gerd Albrecht, beginning in the 1970s.

Another impulse arose during the 1980s in England, where Gillian Moore, the world’s first music communicator employed on a full-time basis, [10] held her first ‘Response Project’ with members of the London Sinfonietta. This format, in which children and young people compose and publicly perform their own music in the style of a reference work, proved extremely influential for the music communication scene, especially in Germany. The first German ‘Response Project’ was given by members of the London Sinfonietta and Ensemble Modern at 17 Berlin schools in 1988. Thereafter the format was widely copied and has maintained a firm place in the communication portfolio of concert hosts to the present day. Moreover,
the underlying idea of pursuing aspects of a concert programme by releasing the listeners’ own musical creativity, and thereby enhancing their receptivity to the concert itself, proved to have an influence on concert-related workshops as a whole . [11] In the 1990s many activities of this sort were carried out by musicians of the orchestras and concert halls concerned, who engaged in this field out of personal interest, often without payment.

Professionalisation and networking

Music communication was placed on a more professional basis in the latter half of the 1990s when concert halls in the German-speaking countries first introduced paid positions for communicators. Initially these were usually lone warriors from non-musical departments, such as public relations or marketing. But in 2002 Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic set new standards by founding their education department ‘Zukunft@BPhil’, generously funded by Deutsche Bank. Then, in 2005, the documentary film Rhythm is it! on the orchestra’s pioneering ballet project conquered the cinemas, making the potential of music communication instantaneously clear to a broad public (even though some may have found its subtitle, ‘You Can Change Your Life in a Dance Class’, a bit over the top).

With the establishment of the new professional field of music communication, the need arose for proper training facilities. The first degree programme in the German-speaking countries was launched at Detmold University of Music in 1998 as a job-attendant master’s degree. At the same time the first research activities began with Anke Eberwein’s study of concerts for children and young people (1998). Since then music communication has been offered as a subject at a growing number of colleges and universities in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, whether as an undergraduate programme (Cologne University), a master’s programme (Augsburg University) or in the form of elective modules and voluntary coursework. Moreover, a growing number of protagonists outside the university system offer advanced and post-graduate training in music communication for professional and amateur musicians (e.g. Musikland Niedersachsen gGmbH). Finally, in 2010 the Körber Foundation in Hamburg launched an excellence initiative, the Masterclass on Music Education, with the goal of training future music communication managers in close cooperation with leading concert halls throughout Europe. The scholarship programme was, however, discontinued after three cycles, probably for the simple reason that concert halls in the German-speaking countries have yet to institute such leading management positions.

The scene was further professionalised by the networking of its practitioners, in particular with the founding of the network ‘Junge Ohren’ (young ears) in 2007. This network has managed to start a lively exchange among music communicators through regional conferences, professional symposia and online resources. Since 2008 the Elbphilharmonie and the Körber Foundation have sponsored a biannual congress in Hamburg on ‘The Art of Music Education’ that has evolved into an important meeting place for the international music communication scene. Meanwhile Swiss music communicators have developed their own professional network, ‘Musikvermittlung Schweiz+’. 

Music communication today

For 20 years music education in concert halls has witnessed continuous growth. According to figures from the German Orchestra Union (Deutsche Orchestervereinigung, DOV), the annual number of educational events at the concerts of Germany’s publicly funded theatre, concert, chamber and broadcasting orchestras has more than doubled since 2003, while the number of symphony and choral concerts in the same period has remained virtually unchanged (see Fig. 4 in the essay ‘Orchestras, Radio Ensembles and Opera Choruses’). This steep growth curve bears witness to the increasing importance of music communication for concert hosts and cultural facilities and has occasionally been interpreted as an  ‘educational  turn’ [12] in the arts. In addition to concert halls, choruses and orchestras, music communication has also been discovered by broadcasting companies, opera houses, independent ensembles, festivals and museums. If smaller ensembles and festivals frequently retain freelancers to conduct their communication programmes, most concert halls and orchestras now have at least one employee to develop, organise and carry out their activities. At present the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg has the largest education department in the German-speaking countries, with 21 employees.

The wide-ranging communication formats in existence today fall roughly into three categories:

› Concerts for special target groups. Here music communicators develop concert formats designed to meet the needs of a particular target group, whether in their length, dramatic structure, choice of music, interior décor or the inclusion of narrative, theatrical, explanatory and/or interactive elements (e.g. baby and children’s concerts).

› Concert-related activities. Here music communicators develop educational formats to augment a concert for the benefit of specific target groups, enabling listeners to enhance their musical experience. They may be explanatory (introductory talks) or participatory (workshops). In both cases musicians are often involved so that participants can establish personal ties to the artists. Equally widespread, in addition to activities inside the concert hall, are workshops, outreach projects and media-based forms of communication (apps, programme booklets). Depending on the institution concerned, there may also be crossovers to neighbouring fields, such as theatre education at opera houses.

› Communication activities without a concert. Here music communicators who are not themselves active concert hosts develop educational activities unrelated to a concert visit. These might involve musical instrument museums, composer museums, art museums or musicological institutes that wish to use the methods of music communication either to project their own musical content or to pave the way to other art forms and non-musical subjects. There are frequent crossovers to neighbouring fields of activity, such as art education and museum sciences.

While the earliest music communication initiatives were generally directed toward children and young people, today’s cultural institutions have long set their sights on every age group, from new-borns to senior citizens. Some concert halls even make extremely narrow subdivisions in their target groups. The Düsseldorf Tonhalle, for example, divides its children’s concerts into special offers for infants and one-year-olds, toddlers from two to three, preschool children from four to five, and even expectant mothers and their unborn children.

Besides a tendency to subdivide formats and target groups, the last 20 years have also witnessed an expansion of the repertoire, as is best exemplified by the programmes of young people’s concerts. Until well into the 1990s children’s programmes in Germany were dominated by a small number of familiar, usually programmatic pieces such as Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. [13] In contrast, today’s concert programmes offer a diverse repertoire encompassing not only classical music but folk, pop, jazz and contemporary music, sometimes specially composed for the given concert.

Goals of music communication

The goals of music communication are as varied as the communicators themselves and differ according to the institution involved and the specific possibilities and needs on location. However, what most activities do have in common might be the goal to initiate and enhance musical experience. Music communication can create occasions for ‘gathering experiences using cultural and artistic contents and forms while searching for locations, spaces and personal encounters between artists and audience that will make this interchange possible’. [14]

One recurring argument in the fundamental debate about music communication is the view that it can defuse the crisis currently threatening the classical concert industry by attracting an ’audience of tomorrow’ (this is known as ‘audience development’). Whether the fear of the alleged atrophying of the classical concert is actually warranted is quite another matter: although many speak of a ‘crisis of classical music’ in the face of an ageing concert audience, [15] the German Orchestra Association is convinced that we stand ‘at the beginning of a turnaround in classical music’. [16] This debate on the purported ‘crisis of the concert’ can be seen as ‘one cause of the need for music communication and concert education, a need regarded today as self-evident’. [17]

Another goal frequently mentioned is to facilitate cultural participation. Many cultural institutions are concerned not only to address the highly educated, who have a strong affinity to culture in any case, but also, and equally rigorously, to open the gates to art and culture for people with limited access. This need not always be connected with commercial motives: it may equally result from a sense of social responsibility or, in the case of publicly funded cultural facilities, from a subsidy agreement with the state or municipality concerned. Just how unequal the distribution of access to music education can be was emphasised in a study of 2017 commissioned by the Bertelsmann Foundation. This study, enti tled ‘Youth and Music’, came to the conclusion that the musical activities of Ger many’s youth are heavily dependent on the educational and income level of their parents. [18] Music communication, by creating access to culture for everyone, can make a substantial contribution to counteracting this inequality. Here collaborations with the state school system are particularly important, since they can help to reach children and adolescents from all walks of society. The importance of schools as partners for cultural institutions can be seen in the findings of the second Kultur-Barometer for young people: 69 per cent of respondents between the ages of 14 and 24 indicated that they had visited cultural events as part of their school education. Schools are thus the most frequent initiator of cultural visits for young people, even more so than parents (57 per cent). [19] However, no concert hosts truly concerned with opening the gates to culture for the young can limit them selves to addressing children and young people as ‘the concert audience of tomorrow’, and thus as potential future ticket subscribers, and guiding them to the traditional social institution of the concert. Rather, they must take them seriously as a target group of today and help develop new concert forms with educational approaches aimed specifically at the needs of young audiences. This calls for a change in the institutions as a whole, as the rituals and the ‘élitist’, ‘uptight’ or ‘decadent’ [20] atmosphere of a classical concert can be quite off-putting to children and young people. Indeed, it is usually not the music but the socio-cultural aspects that make young people without previous experience feel ill at ease and out of place in concerts, as research has shown. [21]

To change the social attitudes of cultural institutions can be seen as another goal of music communication. This also touches on the artistic self-image of the musicians active in those institutions. Constanze Wimmer, for example, argues that orchestral musicians, following the precepts of ‘artistic citizenship’, should regard ‘their own artistic practice in interaction with developments in society as they affect the orchestra within the community and its immediate surroundings’. They should, she continues, not treat art solely as an end in itself but also as ‘a means of enlightenment, of social interaction and empowerment of groups within society that would otherwise have difficulty accessing publicly funded (highbrow) cultural institutions’. [22] Yet the aspirations and reality of music communication frequently fail to coincide: the structures of symphony orchestras do not ordinarily favour this sort of professional self-image. Nor do the working conditions and institutional ties of music communicators at most cultural institutions permit more than a modest implementation of such ambitious goals.

Working conditions of music communicatiors

The music communication sector employs not only full-time professional music communicators, but also creative musicians and trained educators who work in music communication more or less regularly alongside their main professions. The latter category includes orchestra musicians whose participation in such projects either numbers among their remunerated ‘services’ or takes place in their free time in a spirit of personal commitment. But it also includes church musicians, music school teachers, day-care teachers and others who help to develop communication ideas and organise concert visits and education projects in addition to their daily workload.

Those in the first category, the full-time music communicators, often have a professional background in the arts or education (and sometimes a job on the side) but choose music communication as their primary working area. Their working conditions were examined by the ‘Junge Ohren’ Network and the Educult Research and Consulting Institute in a study covering all German-speaking countries (2018). [23] Music communicators, it was concluded, are young (41 per cent between the ages of 26 and 35), female (79 per cent), highly qualified (50 per cent with degrees in art education) and underpaid (the average gross annual income in Germany was € 24,000). Permanent contracts of employment are still exceptions rather than the rule: almost 45 per cent work freelance; only one out of four (25 per cent) has an open-ended employment contract, and roughly one out of five (22 per cent) a fixed-term contract. Three-fifths of all music communicators must rely on additional sources of income to make ends meet. The reason why they are nevertheless relatively satisfied with their profession, the respondents explain, is that it grants them great freedom to plan and carry out their own projects with a high degree of artistic and educational license. Even so, many music communicators choose to pursue a different career after a few years. The proportion of those active in music communication from one to five years is strikingly high (over 35 per cent), with a sharp downturn among those active from five to ten years.

Quality debates and competitiveness

The professionalisation of music communication went hand in hand with a greater awareness of quality, which became apparent in the discourse on quality arising in the mid-1990s throughout the entire field of cultural education. [24] This awareness may be a consequence of the fact that the first professionally trained music communicators entered the market at that time, which raised the question of what constitutes a successful communication project to a new and higher level. Several writers have already proposed quality criteria in connection with children’s concerts. Ernst Klaus Schneider, for example, emphasises the importance of interior décor, choice of music, artistic presentation, form of presentation, method of music communication, interactions in the concert, and the language and rhetoric of the moderator. However, he points out that the quality of a children’s concert cannot be defined on the basis of the concert itself, for it only emerges from the interplay between presentation and reception. [25] Here it is worth mentioning Constanze Wimmer’s study ‘Exchange’ (2010), which systematises the structural, processual and product quality in communication projects, deliberately not as a catalogue of normative criteria, but as a guideline for self-assessment.

Although such discussions are invaluable for identifying the success factors of music communication formats, the predominance of the discourse on quality in music communication has its problematic side. After all, ‘addressing the topic of quality, with all its attendant word games, and opening up discursive spaces such as evaluation, impact and cooperation, have caused the field of cultural education to develop a discursive connectivity with neoliberal concepts of control and regulation’. [26] Given the skyrocketing number of communication projects since the 1990s, and the stagnating or even declining funds from the public sector, music communicators are generally forced to acquire financial backing for their work on a project-by-project basis. Here, in addition to municipalities and federal states, great importance also attaches to foundations and business donors. The consequence is a growing competitiveness in the field, since ‘those who do not receive aid at the institutional level will be forced to acquire fresh funds for each project and thereby automatically to enter into competition with other potential aid recipients. The success of projects must be demonstrated at the end, and helps in the procurement of funds for new projects’. [27] This situation makes it more difficult to realise long-term projects, particularly as both public and private backers are more likely to be interested in financing innovative pilot projects than providing follow-up funds to stabilise established initiatives. The consequence of this approach is ‘thinking in projects’, where maximum visibility often enough takes precedence over the creation of sustainable ventures. The endless series of ‘best practice examples’ and ‘flagship projects’ presented at the relevant congresses is an expression of this new bent toward competitiveness, reinforced by the mediagenic launch ing of competitions like ‘Kinder zum Olymp’, ‘Junge Ohren’ (Young Ears) Prize and ‘YEAH! Young EARopean Award’.

Music communication – quo vadis?

 Music communication is firmly established in the German speaking-countries. It stands for a lively and increasingly professionalised and networked field in which a very wide range of practitioners (concert halls, ensembles, broadcasting companies, professional associations, freelance music communicators and many others) continuously develop new formats for people of all ages. To actually reach the ambitious goals frequently associated with music communication, however, it is imperative to continue improving the working conditions of professional communicators. Not until a sufficient number of permanent positions have been created, with salaries appropriate to level of qualification, will it be possible to offer long-term job prospects to well-trained specialists in this field. Another desideratum is to further develop its financing models; this would help to facilitate long-term initiatives with the potential of changing the self-image of cultural institu tions, to establish durable organisational structures, and to effectively advance the cause of cultural participation.

Moreover, more scholarly research into music communication is needed in order to form a better understanding of its impact and the conditions for its success, to make it dovetail more effectively with music education at school, and to further develop demand-oriented professional training. Although a large number of field reports and ‘best practice’ examples already exists, empirical studies of the processes that actually take place in communication projects are sporadic at best, probably owing to the unanswered question of what field of study is the responsible authority. Although music communication is just beginning to take hold as an independent academic discipline, other fields of study, such as music education and music pedagogy, have ignored the subject far too long. The founding in 2016 of the Music Communication Forum at Colleges and Universities (Forum Musikvermittlung an Hochschulen und Universitäten, www.forum-musikvermittlung.eu), a consortium of university teachers and scholars from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, gives promise that research activities will increase over the coming years, and that music communication can develop a profile not only as a field of practice, but as an academic discipline.