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‘Everybody wants to be Pavarotti’: The Experience of Music for Performers and Audience at a Gilbert and Sullivan Festival

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Stephanie E. Pitts
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Abstract

This article investigates the contribution that musical participation makes to people's lives by reporting on a study carried out at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in August 2001 in Buxton, Derbyshire. The audience are shown to have a strong commitment to the musical genre and its preservation through live performance, whilst the performers are more likely to value membership of their society and the personal satisfaction that comes from successful performance. The festival therefore serves diverse purposes for those who attend it, and raises further questions about the interaction between social, personal and musical experience at events of this kind.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 129 , Issue 1 , 2004 , pp. 143 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 2004

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References

I am grateful to all festival participants who completed questionnaires and were involved in interviews, and to the organizers who allowed the research project to take place. Thanks also to Eric Clarke and Jonathan Stock for their diverse but equally encouraging perspectives on the article; their comments and those of the JRMA reviewers and editor have been consistently helpful and thought-provoking.Google Scholar

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20 William Parry's talk was included in the annual church service that forms part of the festival, and I am grateful to him for supplying me with a copy of his text.Google Scholar

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