‘O Lord, open thou our lips’: listeners’ experiences of BBC Radio 3’s Choral Evensong on The New Radio 3 Forum

Clarke, Martin V. (2019). ‘O Lord, open thou our lips’: listeners’ experiences of BBC Radio 3’s Choral Evensong on The New Radio 3 Forum. In: Barlow, Helen and Rowland, David eds. The Experience of Listening to Music: Methodologies, Identities, Histories. Milton Keynes: The Open University.

URL: https://ledbooks.org/proceedings2019/#sec_1202_h1

Abstract

This chapter examines the listening experiences shared by contributors to The New Radio 3 Forum on threads related to BBC Radio 3’s Choral Evensong. Focusing on the musical, liturgical, and spiritual content of the experiences, it argues that they represent a community of highly engaged, committed, experienced, and knowledgeable listeners. It also demonstrates that engagement with the forum is a key part of the extended listening experience for regular contributors. While listeners demonstrate a variety of musical preferences and attitudes towards religious matters, their loyalty to Choral Evensong is shown to override such differences, enabling them to engage in informed and opinionated debate. The chapter draws on studies of communication patterns and engagement in online special-interest groups, the internet’s shaping of musical fandom, and the nature of online Christian communities to argue that the committed listening community that has developed on the forum and the detailed and discursive nature of its interactions exist in a symbiotic and self-sustaining relationship. The richness of the listening experiences both generates the strong sense of community and is enabled and perpetuated by it.

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