'Broadening a horizon of expectations': a qualitative investigation of The Mangaung String Programme

Abstract

This essay describes the establishment and development of the Mangaung String Programme, while focusing in more detail on its impact on the participants and their community. Drawing on qualitative methodology, surveys were conducted amongst the different community stakeholders involved in the programme. The findings were contextualised within the framework of the reception theory of Hans Robert Jauss, drawing on his principles of the 'horizon of expectations', the progressiveness and affirmativeness of art, and his claim for a 'communitive aesthetics'.