“The musicians need to come down from the stage and communicate with the people,” said Stilian Kirov, Seattle Symphony assistant conductor. “They need to share what inspires them and what they want to say through their music, dance and performances.”

But 2010 David Effron Conducting Fellow Kirov, who conducted last week’s Music School Festival Orchestra dance-inspired concert, hopes to break through the perception that classical music is just for high society.

Three hundred years ago, classical music was for the affluent. Shortly after, it became the people’s music. People would gather together and play chamber music or have parties with some folk tunes, which composers later on would take and make into symphonies.