This project investigates when and how performers' and audience members' bodies act together during classical music concerts. Music performances bring bodies into different relationships, and we study coordination across performance roles and musical arrangements. The LYDO concert series targets children and focuses on how young people engage with classical music.
What is the purpose of the project?
This project explores how orchestral musicians communicate with each other and the audience and how feelings of togetherness arise during concert performances. We are especially interested in how body rhythms—including expressive body motion and physiological rhythms like heart rate and breathing—align between people who are playing or listening to music together and fluctuate in relation to the characteristics of the music
The Concert
- The orchestra played works by Grieg, Reich, S?verud, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, and Vivaldi and premiered a new work by Bj?rn Morten Christophersen.
The Science
The rich dataset collected during the concerts supports multiple research questions, including:
- Communication and time: How do the conductor's gestures during tempo changes transfer across the ensemble?
- Coordination between players: When are performers’ heart rates and respiration most aligned within sections? What about between sections?
- Audience to the orchestra: How do audience behaviours like silent attention and noisy applause affect professional performers? How is applause duration negotiated between the audience and those onstage?
- For science: Are these patterns robust across repeated performances?
Scientific Leads
RITMO participants
- Laura Bishop
- Finn Upham
- Kayla Burnim
- Bilge Serdar G?ksülük
- Alexander Refsum Jensenius
- Dana Swarbrick
- Bruno Laeng
- Maham Riaz
- Jonna Vuoskoski
Research partners
- Simon H?ffding, University of Southern Denmark
- Niels Christian Hansen, University of Aarhus
- Sara D'Amario, Universit?t für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien
Research assistants
- Hugh von Armin
- Sebastian Langslet
About LYDO
LYDO is developed by Stavanger Symphony Orchestra in collaboration with Equinor's talent development programme, Morgendagens Helter. The aim is to stimulate interest in the sciences through music and is targeted at children in grades 5-10 in elementary school.