An investigation into the value proposition of classical music: The creative value chain, music as work and value measurement in a New Zealand context of opera, orchestra and composition

Abstract

Composition and performance of classical music provides a service offering that simultaneously fulfils the artistic goals of composer, performer and audience whilst contributing to education, community, the economy, and well-being. Arts organisations are heavily reliant on service quality leading to the satisfaction of both performer and audience member. This forms a co-production value proposition which can be analysed in non-financial dimensions as well as traditional financial measures of economic impact. Culture as the disrupter to the economic drive for commoditisation and relatively homogenous pricing. Therefore, the ability to fix an equivalent value on cultural objects or events is complex as it involves experience by immersion, rather than consumption. This thesis proposes that to measure the value proposition of classical music one must be able to define the degree to which it expresses the realities of the human condition, the relationship between life and music and whether that quality is quantifiable. Measuring the value and impact value of classical music experience has not been effectively surveyed or measured in Aotearoa New Zealand to date, and other empirical surveys in Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia data relating to value have focussed on a limited number of attributes of a complex, multi-dimensional sector. The impact that tertiary education can have on enhancing the understanding of how to understand, interpret and use the aspects of a value proposition in the generation of personal income from classical music can be accomplished through delivery of business management skills for classical musicians. This capability is needed to offset the pervasive suspicion of artists of the financial aspects of business and the comparable misinformation of the musician as structurally impoverished. Despite the vagaries of the marketplace, the essential nature of art which classical music embodies will in the long term prevail. Proof of the value proposition of classical music may be the next important phase of assuring musicians and audience members of the sustainability and endurance of classical music.