Pietro Modestini, Max Planck institute for Empirical Aesthetics
Mediating technologies continue to reshape how we experience music. Streaming formats redefine performance spaces by bringing concerts into oneās living room or other unconventional communal settings (e.g., Barker, 2013). Advances in concert filming techniques offer exclusive perspectives on performers and guide our gaze along musical structures. How do these novel settings (re)shape concert experiences? Do they compensate for the physical presence inherent in live concerts?
Classical concert streaming underpins the two empirical studies presented in this paper. The first study on digital concert experiences is based on an analysis of 341 free-form participant comments after viewing an on-demand concert (Modestini & Weining, 2025). Among medium-related affordances, the camera work has a particular potential to affect sensory perception. Forms of āmediatisedā liveness emerge (Sanden, 2013), building on the perception of listenersā multifaceted connections to others and the event itself.
Liveness, understood as a subjective state of connectedness, is investigated in the second study (Project MultiLive), which directly compares in-person attendance with collective live stream viewing of a chamber music performance. Data from questionnaires and in-depth interviews provide a nuanced picture. The experience of liveness emerges from a complex interplay between immediate sensory perception and subtle conscious reflection, including feelings of alienation and empathy.
Overall, the studies highlight both the opportunities and limitations inherent in concert streaming, while also suggesting ways to enhance specific experiential dimensions in future streaming or hybrid concert designs.
Biography: Pietro Modestini is a doctoral candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt. Trained as a classical guitarist in the Netherlands and Italy, he later moved to Berlin, where he combined performing and teaching with musicology studies. He earned his degree with a thesis integrating philosophical perspectives on co-presence in live performance. His PhD research explores how context and media shape classical music listening experiences, focusing on the phenomenology of connection and alienation. As part of the instituteās Performance Research group, he contributes to developing methods and research questions for empirically investigating musical experiences in naturalistic environments.