Live music studies in perspective

Live music has been an object of academic enquiry for several decades, though for much of that time it was not regarded or discussed explicitly as a specific field of study. In the twenty-first century, we have seen a surge of interest in researching gigs, tours, concerts, and festivals from a variety of approaches. The goal of this introductory chapter is to provide a tangible picture of the emergence and consolidation of live music research as a field of study, mentioning some of the ontological, theoretical, and methodological issues that have informed the study of live music. The chapter also focuses on three concepts that have helped shape discussions on live music and that have gathered prominence in recent years: performance, staging, and mediation. We clarify some of their uses and potential meanings, and foreground their value in relation to this emerging academic field.