Who is audience?

Abstract

Music conservatoires have generally neglected focusing on a key issue: that of audiences—their needs and wants, why they value particular music, and how music actually functions in any particular community. Yet audience is typically a musician’s first contact with the “real world”; understanding audience (one’s market or customers) is essential to building a sustainable career in music today. This paper focuses on how music students and faculty can explore the issue of audience. Using examples from US conservatoires and concepts from the business world, the paper highlights a number of entrepreneurial learning activities to use within and beyond the classroom and rehearsal space. It also connects this learning with curriculum reform, empathy development, and Design Thinking. The paper argues that our challenge as educators is to design classroom activities that build the life skills needed not just for a student’s immediate future but for a lifetime of learning and community participation.

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