Current state of knowledge
At the moment, there seems to be great interest in multisensory experiential events, undoubtedly spurred by the growing body of research that is being conducted in this field, especially by the Experimental Psychology departments of many universities around the world. Particularly important in this sense is the work that has been, and is being, carried out by the Crossmodal Research Laboratory of the University of Oxford, led by Professor Charles Spence.
For this thesis, literature concerning 'sonic seasoning' (that is, "the deliberate matching, or pairing, of sound/music with taste/flavour in order to enhance, or modify, the multisensory tasting experience" [Spence et al., 2021, p. 1]) has been particularly relevant. Sonic seasoning strongly relies on so-called 'crossmodal-correspondences', which are described as "consistent mappings between attributes or dimensions of stimuli (i.e., objects or events) either physically present (or else merely imagined) in different sensory modalities, be they redundant (i.e., referring to the same stimulus attribute) or not" (Knöferle & Spence, 2012, p. 992). The reader interested in these topics is recommended to consult the review article published by Knöferle & Spence (2012) on crossmodal correspondences between flavour/taste and music/sound; and the review article published by Spence et al. (2021) on sonic seasoning.
While the previously-mentioned body of literature has been of critical relevance for this research, I quickly found that 'sonic seasoning' was perhaps not the best way of describing the kind of relationship between flavour and sound that I was hoping to establish with my experiments and performances. The emphasis of sonic seasoning, as can be read above and is obvious from the fact that the type of matching described is called 'seasoning', is on the tasting experience, which is to be enhanced or modified by the music. A particularly interesting example of sonic seasoning are the American composer Ben Houge's 'Food Operas'. Using his expertise in composing soundtracks for video games, Houge has applied a similar type of thinking to the fine dining experience (Houge & Friedrichs, 2013, p. 2), achieving a very sophisticated synchronisation between the meal and its accompanying music. However, this type of experience is, according to Houge, incompatible with the presence of live music (2012).
One example of a performance with live music paired to a certain food is the very popular piece 'Symphonic Chocolates' by Canadian composer Maxime Goulet. The composition, which exists in versions for symphony orchestra, string orchestra, wind orchestra, string quartet, and various other combinations of instruments, is a suite in four movements, each of them corresponding to a particular type of chocolate (caramel, dark, mint, and coffee-infused, respectively) that is eaten by the audience while that movement is played (Goulet, 2017). The piece seems to have been composed following a similar procedure to what I decided to do for Experiment 1 in this research, namely using studies on crossmodal correspondences between basic tastes and different sonic parameters to outline certain characteristics of the music that would match the different chocolates (Brouillette, 2018). Goulet's composition, which has been performed by many orchestras in the American continent and Europe, seems to take the opposite approach to sonic seasoning. Rather, a basically standard classical music concert is 'seasoned' with the presence of food.
One example of sonic seasoning including a live music performance would be the wine tasting event that ocurred as a follow-up to a paper on crossmodal correspondences between classical music and wine published by Spence et al. (2013). In this private event, a group of players of the London Symphony Orchestra performed a number of pieces live while an audience of more than 100 people tasted the wines that had been judged to best correspond to these pieces (Spence et al., 2013, p. 4).
As far as artistic research is concerned, the article published by Thompson-Bell et al. (2021) is particularly relevant, as it proposes a theoretical model for multisensory artistic practices. This model has not been adopted in the conception of this research and the performances linked to it as it clearly establishes a hierarchy between the two sensory domains that are to be combined, definining one primary domain that is to be sensorially extended through a secondary one (Thompson-Bell et al., 2021, pp. 243-245), but other artists might find it extremely useful. The work of these researchers has lead to instances of sonic seasoning through their collective 'Unusual ingredients'.