The enactment of cultural values and taste-making within

Our research tackles a case study at the ‘hard end’ of cultural value, that of contemporary classical music performance, taking an innovative approach which will contribute to the wider Cultural Value project. Our interdisciplinary approach includes management theory and practice (PI), and music ‘insiders’ (CI) (including artistic and policy partners). Our methods have been tried and tested and successfully replicated across different cultural settings (ESRC: RES-331-27-0065 and ESRC: RES-187-24-0014). These innovative methods will contribute to case studies on cultural value, and with the support of Creative Scotland, with whom we will set up a steering group, in addition to contributing £2,000 to support the dissemination of our findings, we will investigate how they can be replicated to produce theoretical and empirical insights that can enhance our understanding of intrinsic value across other cultural settings. So our methods and outcomes will be a useful addition to the array of approaches and contributions under the AHRC’s Cultural Value Project. Our Research Question is: how are cultural values and taste-making enacted in a contemporary music setting, and what are the consequences of that for practice. We will explore taste-making among music practitioners within the empirical setting of a contemporary music performance. These practitioners will be musicians, creative directors/managers as ‘insiders’ of the practice and also actual and potential audience members (firstly those who attend classical music performances but have never attended a contemporary classical performance and secondly those who have never attended a contemporary or classical music performance but who have an interest in arts and music), as ‘outsiders’ of the practice.