Performative arts-based audience research: investigating experiences with high modernist works for solo flute

Musical communication has been examined from multiple perspectives, ranging from semiotic analysis and cognitive approaches to social and cultural contexts. Nevertheless, an approach that combines qualitative methods with artistic perspectives is lacking. In this PhD project, three postwar modernist works for solo flute constitute a program performed in three cities in Norway: B. Ferneyhough – Cassandra’s Dream Song; B. Jolas – Fusain pour une Flutiste, and M. Kagel – Atem für einen Bläser. After each performance, I conducted focus group studies with participants engaged primarily through the respective cities’ symphonic orchestra subscription list. Guided by a general agential realist perspective on music performance and an inquiry into audience responses, I aim to investigate how live performance experiences with this music produce subjectivities among audiences, and how this can be expressed by creating narratives from the interviews and conversations. In addition, my own navigation around the double role of performer and researcher is subject to inquiry.