Jennifer Fuller
School of Languages, Arts and Societies
Grantham Scholar
- Profile
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Exploring the opportunities and challenges for leisure-time orchestras to effect social change.
The project:
Amateur orchestral music making is a popular leisure activity in the UK: there are over 450 symphony orchestras registered with Making Music UK. In contrast, the Musicians’ Union lists around 60 professional orchestras in the UK. Amateur orchestras are embedded in the local communities, incubators for music students, and leisure opportunities for local people and audiences.
Jenn’s project centres around understanding the potential for amateur orchestras to influence social change. Jenn’s research will increase understanding of the importance of repertoire choice and programme curation on audiences and amateur players as well as the leaders and managers of orchestras whose needs, resources and experiences will differ from those in the professional sector. Using a mixed methods approach, collating data from pre and post event surveys, attendance data, player questionnaires along with in-depth interviews, case studies and partner input, Jenn will examine how research into amateur orchestras can evidence social impact to support their role as educators and influencers in their local communities.
As part of this, Jenn will explore Ecomusicking, an emerging movement for arts organisations and researchers. Ecomusicking has centred around practical matters of sustainability, e.g. where materials are sourced to make and repair instruments, how orchestras travel on tour, using venues that demonstrate sustainable policies. However, music psychologists are now using their knowledge of music, emotion and identity to demonstrate how music events can encourage more climate-conscious behaviour amongst players and audiences. Jenn will work with amateur orchestras to design programmes in partnership with environmental organisations to deliver messaging around sustainability, measuring the impact this has on players and audiences.
Jenn is a PhD researcher based in the Music Department of the University of Sheffield. She is supervised by Professor Stephanie Pitts, Director of the Sheffield Performer and Audience Research Centre, and Dr Jennifer MacRitchie, Co-Director of Muses, Mind, Machine research group.
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