Local, National and International Interpretations of the Importance of a Local Cultural Institute and Reception of Challenging Programming

Research Proposal for a Doctoral Thesis -
Local, National and International Interpretations of the Importance of a Local Cultural Institute and Reception of Challenging Programming - Case the Chamber Orchestra of Lapland

Spring, 2004

Music is a commodity of a special kind. It is immaterial by nature, although it can be obtained by buying material objects like recordings. In this study, I will try to sort out the logic how people do consume music as a cultural and a service product. What is special in this case, how do music critics worldwide, nationally and locally react to the Chamber Orchestra of Lapland, as it is a local institute having become famous for its attempts to cross over the traditional definitions of musical genres. As a starting point, I try to solve out if the audience’ choice is conservative or tolerant of challenging concert programs, and whether this same approach to culture also applies to music critics. I will also develop the theoretical concepts of symbolic consumption and imaginary groups. The original idea of this study is accepted at the University of Helsinki; also some contacts with Sibelius Academy have been taken.

Culture can be seen as a service product (by Kolb 2000, pages 136-141): it is a convenience product, a comparison product and a speciality product.

There are external factors influencing consumer choice (Kolb 2000, pages 123-130); according to Kolb such as education, ethnic culture, reference groups, family and social class. Then there are motivators that might be called as “internal” reasons for attendance, mentioned by Kolb (pages 107-110) e.g. leisure and entertainment, social ritual and self-improvement, or likeas divided in a survey conducted in France internal factors influencing cultural choices can be divided into three main groups: educational motives: cultural “meat”, learning from the performance, intellectual stimulation: personal development, an intellectual challenge and pleasure: social, interaction, communication (Bouder-Pailler 1999)

This division of external and internal motivators stresses out the notion that consumer choice of musical products is deeply a social venture practiced, determined, renewed, constructed and produced by individual consumer choices. It goes both ways; of course also the choice and the possibility the choose is determined by the available cultural products.

The quantitative aspect of the cultural consuming and participation can be tackled through different cultural statistics. Some comparative studies based on this data are already being made; in the study I use here included were Ireland, Scotland and Finland because of the comparable population scale, Northern Ireland, Wales, England because of similarity in language, norms, administration and France because it is a model country in cultural activity and expenditure. Following indicators were then used: aggregate attendance in arts events, patterns of attendance at selected arts events, ownership of items of consumer electronics, use of home-based technology as a means of accessing the arts for selected artforms, participation in amateur activities and attitudes to the arts (Clancy 1999, 223-244; in the book edited by Fitzgibbon&Kelly).

My aim is to have a picture of the logic and evaluation process of social appreciations and cultural classifications that define the consumer’s social position in the field of collecting music and to try to define the factors influencing cultural choices, both individually and socially. In my master’s thesis I claimed that so-called crossover is not easy to apprehend and locate by the music journalists, as they usually are specialists, specialised in one musical genre.

My method will consist of getting familiar with all the relevant cultural statistics and audience research, and then perhaps test by preliminary hypothesis by interviewing attendants of musical events and musical directors. I will also try to have a picture of the musical product as a species of industrially produced and marketed mass entertainment but also as a individual lifestyle-orientated but popularly marketed package of experience. I also have to find all the possible material written about the Chamber Orchestra of Lapland; also articles helping the conseptualisation of the concept crossover.

BACKGROUND LITERATURE for this paper:

From Maestro to Manager. Critical Issues in Arts&Culture Management. Oak Tree Press, Dublin in association with Graduate School of Business&University College Dublin. 1997; Reprinted in 1999. Edited by Anne Fitzgibbon & Anne Kelly

KOLB, Bonita M. (2000): Marketing Cultural Organisations. New Strategies for Attracting Audiences to Classical Music, Dance, Museums, Theatre and Opera. Oak Tree Press, Dublin 2000.

PERUKANGAS, Michael (1998): Musiikkiarvostelut - politiikkaa vai tiedettä. A master’s thesis in sociology, University of Helsinki.