{"title":"The Extensions of Opera: Radio, Internet, and Immersion","authors":"Anna Schürmer","doi":"10.1080/07494467.2022.2087390","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Social distancing is a central (un)word of the pandemic year 2020. Now, music culture thrives on performative ‘liveness’—even in classical music, where live experience has become the core of the musical artwork in the age of its mechanical reproduction. At the same time, the history of music can be read as a history of the dissolution of boundaries: from the body (voice), to mechanical instruments, to electronic extensions. Accelerated by regulations in response to the COVID-19 crisis, music culture passes another media transformation, entering new virtual stages. In fact, crisis always implies changes and chances too: economists call it ‘creative destruction’, artists call it innovation. And indeed, ‘social distancing’ in interaction with accelerated digitalisation also holds media-aesthetic potential. With the support of new media, and this is the hypothesis of this essay, the contemporary music scene in particular can form new dramatic forms that go far beyond the classical one-way stream: by enabling virtual participation instead of physical co-presence.","PeriodicalId":44746,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Music Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2022-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Contemporary Music Review","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2022.2087390","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"MUSIC","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Social distancing is a central (un)word of the pandemic year 2020. Now, music culture thrives on performative ‘liveness’—even in classical music, where live experience has become the core of the musical artwork in the age of its mechanical reproduction. At the same time, the history of music can be read as a history of the dissolution of boundaries: from the body (voice), to mechanical instruments, to electronic extensions. Accelerated by regulations in response to the COVID-19 crisis, music culture passes another media transformation, entering new virtual stages. In fact, crisis always implies changes and chances too: economists call it ‘creative destruction’, artists call it innovation. And indeed, ‘social distancing’ in interaction with accelerated digitalisation also holds media-aesthetic potential. With the support of new media, and this is the hypothesis of this essay, the contemporary music scene in particular can form new dramatic forms that go far beyond the classical one-way stream: by enabling virtual participation instead of physical co-presence.
期刊介绍:
Contemporary Music Review provides a forum for musicians and musicologists to discuss recent musical currents in both breadth and depth. The main concern of the journal is the critical study of music today in all its aspects—its techniques of performance and composition, texts and contexts, aesthetics, technologies, and relationships with other disciplines and currents of thought. The journal may also serve as a vehicle to communicate documentary materials, interviews, and other items of interest to contemporary music scholars. All articles are subjected to rigorous peer review before publication. Proposals for themed issues are welcomed.