Constructing the Public Concert Hall

In the current discourse surrounding classical music institutions, issues of inclusion and diversity are regularly to the fore. There is pressure to prove the relevance of orchestras and ensembles to wider society, with outreach work in educational settings and in communities already an established part of their output. Using data gathered from a research project with the International Music and Performing Arts Charitable Trust Scotland (IMPACT Scotland), which is responsible for planning a new concert hall in Edinburgh to be called the Dunard Centre, this article extends these debates by relocating them to a new arena: the buildings classical institutions inhabit. First, the public nature of the concert hall is explored by examining three ‘strategies for publicness’ identified in concert-hall projects: the urbanistic strategy, the living building strategy and the ‘art for all’ strategy. These will be discussed in relation to the extensive literature on public space. The second part of the article examines recent developments in musicology and arts policy which encourage more ‘democratic’ arts practice. These will be used as the basis for asking how the concert hall (and its primary tenant, the orchestra) might better achieve the publicness that is so often promised on their behalf.

Section 37 & the creative city: how density bonuses have secured cultural benefits in the city of Toronto

Section 37 of the Planning Act authorizes Ontario municipalities to permit developments to achieve greater height and density than otherwise allowed in exchange for community benefits. Although land use planners rarely take a leading role in arts policy discussions, this planning tool has been identified as an important opportunity to support and grow Toronto’s arts and culture sector. This research project investigates how Section 37 agreements have been used to secure spaces for cultural production and dissemination in the City of Toronto. A mixed-methods approach is used to quantify these benefits and their distribution throughout the city, and to probe the experiences of cultural organizations in order to better understand who and what is relied upon to build new cultural spaces. The study concludes that land use planners must reinvent their approach to cultural planning and make proactive use of planning tools in order to support Toronto’s creative city goals.

Section 37 & the creative city: how density bonuses have secured cultural benefits in the city of Toronto

Section 37 of the Planning Act authorizes Ontario municipalities to permit developments to achieve greater height and density than otherwise allowed in exchange for community benefits. Although land use planners rarely take a leading role in arts policy discussions, this planning tool has been identified as an important opportunity to support and grow Toronto’s arts and culture sector. This research project investigates how Section 37 agreements have been used to secure spaces for cultural production and dissemination in the City of Toronto. A mixed-methods approach is used to quantify these benefits and their distribution throughout the city, and to probe the experiences of cultural organizations in order to better understand who and what is relied upon to build new cultural spaces. The study concludes that land use planners must reinvent their approach to cultural planning and make proactive use of planning tools in order to support Toronto’s creative city goals.

Stop measuring, start understanding! An arts policy and management researcher’s autobiographic account of the urgency of an ethnographic turn in research on the values of art1

In this article I argue for a shift of focus from measurement to understanding in research on the values of art. Based on my research experience with publicly funded opera companies and inspired by ethnography, I suggest a bottom-up, contextual and patient approach to research on the values of art in society. Bottom-up means that it focuses on the valorization of practice versus theory; contextual means that it focuses on the valorization of the specific contexts versus the generalizability of results; patient means that it focuses on the valorization of the process of understanding versus the urgency to apply. Three of my research projects illustrate how this approach can contribute to finding a voice for all facets, both quantifiable and unquantifiable ones, of the values that arts organizations create for their communities.