ABSTRACT
Symphony orchestras face challenges that endanger their traditional ways of operating. Innovation is seen as key to shaping new futures. What role can knowledge institutions such as universities and arts institutes play in developing the interdisciplinary research needed to analyze and support this innovation? The Maastricht Centre for the Innovation of Classical Music (MCICM) is a unique structural collaboration between an orchestra, a higher arts education institute, a university, and a regional government. Taking the ideas and concepts behind this initiative as a starting point, this chapter explores how the orchestra can be a lab for practice-based and artistic research on new concert formats and audience participation. The authors elaborate on the Artful Participation project, which combines academic research into innovations in symphonic concert formats with experiment-based artistic research, focusing on how these experiments can facilitate knowledge exchange and collaborative learning. The text also reflects on what is required from orchestras to incorporate this collaboration into their own search for renewal.
