Public exposure: The international classical music competition, or the indeterminate as determinant

Abstract

This contribution will analyse a special form of public, the public of experts. We will focus on international music competitions and their evaluation procedures. Indeed, musicians have to accumulate a number of significant prizes in international music competitions to gain recognition and visibility and to enter the soloists’ musical market. Musicians have to go through a certain number of selection processes to be able to play in big venues, in front of a large audience. Their access to the public is therefore subjected to examination by a jury, whose selection criteria will be investigated in this paper.

We were able to conjure various selection criteria at work during the evaluation process. First, there are rather formal technical criteria, but later in the competition, criteria such as musicality, personality, and authenticity are put forward and are developed in the interaction between the jury and candidates.