ABSTRACT
The objective of this discussion is to re-affirm the qualitative and quantitative significance of live music and its audiences, in the face of an emphasis in the scholarly literature on the mediatisation of music that sometimes even questions the existence of live performance.1 Two recent quotations from press interviews exemplify some of the basic arguments prosecuted here. Tom Pickard, 13-year-old member of the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, described his experience, ‘When we’re singing, well it feels like one big mind’. The choirmaster, Stephen Cleobury amplified the point in relation to performing in the College chapel: ‘One of the most astonishing buildings in the world to sing in. The music just seems to bloom inside it’ (Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Spectrum’, 19-20 July 2014: 9).
