The Intention/Reception Project: Investigating Composer Intention and Listener Response in Electroacoustic Compositions

The opportunity to incorporate real-world sounds into musical works has led to new listening strategies in terms of the musical experience. Given the acute separation between contemporary art music in general and society, one of the areas that researchers have surprisingly avoided to a large extent concerns the musical experience of electroacoustic works that contain real-world sound references. The Intention/Reception project is introducing a dynamic methodology into electroacoustic research, one that ultimately looks towards establishing a stronger identity for electroacoustic music within the greater bodies of contemporary and popular music. The methodology that has been developed looks outside of the formal, structural model of analysis that is focussed on the intrinsic structures of the electroacoustic composition – its understanding of ‘how’ the work was composed (a poietic approach) , towards investigating the listening experience (an esthesic approach) and ‘why’ the work was composed