A public music concert is essentially a sociocultural ritual in which the audience and musicians interact. Often the format of the concert marks the division of music into “popular” and “academic” but it is not always true. Since the appearance of the first public concerts in England, the organizers made attempts to attract as many listeners as possible by modifying the performance formats, including completely different works in the program, serious and popular, well-known and new, trying to please different tastes. They also were changing the way of presenting music. This trend continues today as academic composers come up with new ways of presenting their works, in new places and new formats, including new compositions into different programs. In this article, we will look at how the formats of concerts in England have changed, and what kind of music was played on them, for example, Vauxhall Gardens concerts, military band concerts, BBC Proms festival, Nonclassical club night concerts.
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