Gesa Frömmings project, entitled “Acting in Concert,” will recover an Early Modern tradition of political thought and a concurrent tradition of music philosophy which may allow us to productively rethink the ethical and political dimensions of music as a social practice, while enhancing our understanding of the ways in which musical experiences have informed the historical development of the public sphere as a political institution. The projects hopes to enrich our sense of what constitutes a public sphere by drawing attention to the autotelic pleasures to be found in political action, artistic production, and judging publicly upon both, if these activities are understood as creative processes that bring about, and maintain, a world in which living and acting together may be experienced as an end in itself.