This subproject is a phenomenological and exploratory analysis of the complex perceptual processes that occur when listening to contemporary classical music. This is achieved by means of 16 qualitative interviews with 8 experts from the field of classical-romantic and 8 from the field of contemporary classical music. The following research questions were fundamental in the creation of the semi-structured interview: What is the fascination of contemporary classical music and why are people looking for experiences with this musical style? What is so-called "aesthetic pleasure" like and how does it relate to the perceptually challenging properties of the music? Various models of aesthetic experience serve as the basis of the questions, so that several dimensions of experience are addressed and explored. The results of the two groups will be compared using qualitative content analysis.

One of the aims of this study is to complement existing work modeling the aesthetic experience of music in order to either confirm extant theoretical concepts with these qualitative data or to generate new dimensions and qualities of the music aesthetic experience.

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