Creating Meaningful Experiences: Through Interactive Concerts

What Interactive Concerts Can Do for Your Chorus

Choral audiences usually include patrons with widely varying levels of musical expertise. Our audiences likely include other musicians whose understanding of concert music is deep, but the other largest portion is made up of friends, family, and colleagues of the performers who may have little familiarity with choral music. Despite this dichotomy in musical expertise, a 2016 audience impact study found that both frequent and first-time choral patrons wished “to be emotionally moved or inspired” when attending concerts (this was consistently cited as a chief motivation for attendance). This is not to say that the desire to witness high-quality singing and craftsmanship has been completely eclipsed. Rather, it demonstrates that both musically experienced listeners and novices place high value on the emotional rewards of live performance. So how do we emotionally engage both newcomers and veteran patrons? One answer is to invite them to do a little more than just be passive receivers. We can ask them to reflect, ask questions, and connect the concert themes to their own lives to create something more meaningful. We can shift the paradigm from a focus on selling repertoire to selling an experience. We can program challenging repertoire without fear of turning away our subscription base or ostracizing non-musicians. We can combat the persistent idea that one needs to know a lot about this music in order to “get it.” This focus on the listener experience can foster a stronger sense of community within the concert hall and beyond. It can also endear your organization to ticket buyers, showing them that you care about the way your music enriches their lives. The good news is that creating interactive moments doesn’t require elaborate technology or a total overhaul of your program. In fact, there are many simple strategies for inviting audience participation in thoughtful ways. Below you’ll find some examples of interactive concert elements that are cost-effective, easy to implement, and impactful.

Five Interactive Concert Elements to Try

1. Start with a Sample: Performing an excerpt for the audience before the full performance of a piece does not give away any spoilers. In fact, helping listeners make connections to a musical passage makes each subsequent hearing more meaningful. The audience will be more emotionally invested when that excerpt comes around in the context of the full piece. Consider asking listeners to call to mind a feeling, experience, emotion, or life event before performing a small but musically evocative portion of the work for them. When listeners put themselves in a certain emotional frame of mind, hearing the music can amplify those feelings. (Then your favorite part of the work becomes their favorite too.)You might demonstrate a particularly complicated passage and take it apart for the audience. Show them what each part sounds like alone and piece it back together Ask listeners to describe the overall effect. Ask, “Can you still hear the altos? Can you really hear them?” Scott Metcalfe, artistic director of the Boston-area-based Blue Heron Renaissance Choir, often uses demonstrations to help audiences notice the inner workings of complex Renaissance music. In an intro - duction to Ockeghem’s Missa Cuiusvis Toni, the singers demonstrated various modes using the tune of “Happy Birthday” (a video of this demonstration can be found on the Blue Heron YouTube channel). “The live, illustrated demonstration engages people in a physical way that reading [program notes] does not,” says Metcalfe. “People listen better if they’re given tools with which to listen. If they are more conscious about listening, they’ll enjoy it more. And if they are enjoying being taught about music, they’ll come back. All these things draw people closer to your organization and the purpose you’re there for in the first place.”
2. Get the Singers Talking: Audiences love to hear from singers. A surprising amount of connection and affinity for the performers can be created simply by breaking down the fourth wall. Ask your singers to share with the audience what it feels like to sing a certain passage. What’s going through their minds at that moment in the music? If you have a fantastic soloist, ask them to dem - onstrate the toughest part of the solo. What makes it difficult? What do they love about it? What could go wrong while singing it? Maybe you’re able to project an image of the music so the audience can see just how high that note is or just how complex those runs are. When that passage comes around in the full performance, listeners will be holding their breath waiting to see if the soloist can pull it off!
3. Get the Audience Singing: If you have a piece with a recurring refrain, try teaching it to the audience first (you can even coach them on dynamics or vowels to make it just right). Getting to know the musical material will make listeners more attuned to all the nuances present in your performance. One of my favorite ways to get the audience singing is to create a simpler version of what they’re about to hear. For example, if you have a piece with an aleatoric section, have the audience create something similar using “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” If there is a moment in the music with a particularly fantastic chord, teach the audience to sing a few of the chord members and have the performers surround the audience while singing the rest of the pitches. Ask the listeners to verbalize what sensations they felt while being part of that sonority. Of course, there is always the wonderful option of the audience singing in a performance. Composer Reena Esmail has created several works that include audience or community singing. Esmail says that performances of these pieces have created a sense of warmth and connection beyond what she had initially expected. In order for this type of co-performance to take place successfully in a space where audiences don’t usually sing along, Esmail says you may need to create a context where it feels natural to join in. She says, “You want something to be repeated over and over enough that you can invite them to join […] it’s about [the music] being in their body and in their mind so much that they can’t help but sing along.”
4. Get the Audience Talking: After playing an excerpt, ask the audience to make predictions about what the music will sound like or what the text will be about. Ask them what journey that passage took them on. If this chord were a color, what color would it be? You can ask for responses out loud or have them submit responses through a QR code in the programs. Maybe you show a word cloud or other visualization of the responses received. Or you might give your audience a larger prompt related to the concert’s theme.
5. Make Their Opinions Matter: Have the performers “audition” for the audience and ask listeners to guess which section of the chorus the excerpt was actually written for. Or, during intermission, have the audience vote for which piece from the first half they’d like to hear again as an encore at the end of the concert. Voting could be done on their phones, slips of paper, or with money! Try holding a discussion about what they picked and why. At their best, interactive elements don’t just break the fourth wall, they build a bridge. When audiences are invited to listen more actively, respond more personally, and even sing alongside performers, they begin to experience music not just as sound, but as connection. As you explore these strategies, it helps to keep a few core principles in mind as guidelines that can ensure your interactive elements are meaningful, accessible, and deeply connected to the music itself

Basic Principles for Effective Interactive Elements

Once you’ve decided to incorporate interactive elements, how you do it matters just as much as what you do. The most impactful audience experiences are designed with intention, clarity, and care. Whether you’re experimenting with one new idea or crafting an entire concert with audience interaction in mind, the following principles can help ensure your efforts feel purposeful and enriching for your audience and your performers alike. 

• Find a Good Entry Point. An entry point is an aesthetic or textual element that will get a listener excited about a piece of music, unlocking the door to an impactful experience. When selecting an entry point, consider what excites you about the piece. Although the year it was composed or the composer’s hometown may be part of an interesting backstory, it is probably not what drew you to the piece in the first place. Do you love the dissonant harmonies? Demonstrate a few of those chords and show how they change when you remove or alter one of the chord members. Is the text masterfully set? Showcase a few of your favorite moments and let the audience experiment with text stress or melodic direction.
• Experience Before Information. Yes, your audience will still be interested in learning the story behind a piece or facts about the composer. However, this information will be so much more significant if they have context for it first. Have the audience experience a musical phenomenon, invite them into a feeling, and then give them any historical or biographical information you’d like to share. This order of operations is much more likely to hook the listener and make them want to learn more.
• Connect to What People Already Know. The most effective interactive concerts focus on the feelings and experience of listening to the music, not specific musicological or technical knowledge. James Blachly, conductor of the Experiential Orchestra, once told me, “You’re speaking to an audience that doesn’t know what ‘deceptive cadence’ means. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t know what a deceptive cadence feels like—because they do. And ultimately, that’s what matters more.” So rather than pointing out themes to listen for, ask the audience to reflect on the experience of hearing the music. Which section of the ensemble are their ears drawn to in this passage? Ask them to squeeze their fists when they feel harmonic tension. Ask them to articulate their preferences. Do they prefer the sopranos or the tenors singing this opening line? If this sonority were a color, what color would it be? Most people can do hand motions, draw shapes in the air, compare/contrast, vote for a favorite, play a simple game, or reflect on a common experience or emotion. Our goal is to demonstrate that one does not need specialized knowledge to appreciate this music. The only requirement is to notice in an intentional way.
• People Respond to People. A surprising amount of endearment can be created simply through close proximity to musicians and getting a sense of their candid personas. Get your singers talking and reacting. Find ways to break down that barrier between audience and performers with questions and audience input. You might explore unique venues where singers can surround the audience or vice versa. Maybe you lift the house lights for an interactive introduction, so the audience does not feel so separated from the ensemble. If we want to connect more deeply with our audiences and help them discover for themselves the ways that choral music moves us, we need to explore some creative strategies and be willing to venture from our usual concert routine. However, it is certainly possible to insert an interactive element without disrupting the concert flow. If this is your goal, I recommend launching into interactive elements with little or no preamble. If I am teaching the audience a melody, I simply turn to them, sing the phrase and say, “Your turn!” with a smile and inviting gesture. Usually by the second repetition they will be on board, and your ensemble can help support them by singing along. You might also consider the first half of your concert as an interactive inside look before your full presentation of the program. Of course, not every piece in your concert needs to have an interactive element attached to it. One meaningful invitation to enter into the music in a new way can be enough to inspire curiosity and create a uniquely memorable experience. Interactive performances can amplify what choral music already does so well: invite participation, foster community, and move people deeply. We can acknowledge why patrons have come to our concert (perhaps to see a friend perform, revisit a beloved work, or experience something new), and invite them to do a little more. By purposefully connecting audiences to the music and to each other, we can unlock the door to more meaningful concert experiences that linger with our patrons long after the last cutoff

Dr. Lindsey Bruner Woodcock is Director of Choral Activities and Coordinator of Music Education at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina. Lindsey’s research is focused on audience engagement and the ways in which interactive performances can enhance the concert experience