What do you do to bring classical music to the foreground?

I am not a musician nor instrumental expert. But since I was a toddler, my parents had introduced me to classical music. We all know that classical music is the music people love to hate and it maybe not as popular as r'n'b. But you are right, we have to keep it up! Maybe remixing it with modern music will make it popular. And I think using it as a movie soundtract will also catch more listeners. cheers!

To keep it alive and reach more people I have done many things. I have listenedn and introduced family and friends to the different types of "classical" and told them there is something for everyone. I have played it on the piano and organ (esp. Bach), blasted classical crossover, listened to different interpretations and artists playing the same piece, fostered a love of classical music with my son who is a music major, compare rock and classical elements to anyone who will listen, etc. All of that stuff.

I often play classical music to my friends. When I record CDs for them, I try to put one or two classical scores between pop songs. But it's difficult, especially when it's something with voice, opera especially. Most of them tend to like (at least a bit =) instrumental music, especially chamber music. I'm going to begin my master in musical journalism in October and I'm really interested in what we are going to learn about bringing music to people. We are going to have an own radio program in our university and perhaps it will be possible to experiment with mixture a bit. I'm really looking forward to it.

My family went on vacation recently and had to take two cars, so I made sure to take some of my classical CDs since I had the opportunity to listen to something other than popular radio. At one time, I had two of my sons and a cousin - two 10-year-olds and a 6-year-old. We listened to Holst's "The Planet", Prokofiev's "Classical Symphony" and his Fifth Symphony, and Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherezade". For each one, I told them about the storyline or the form (how a symphony has four movements and the usual order, for example). I was pleasantly surprised at how well they listened and participated in the discussion. They could hear the theme of one of their video games in "Mars", we talked about naming the planets and why Holst didn't have a movement for Pluto, how Russia persecuted many of its artists, all kinds of things. Even though music was my first degree, I teach Spanish now in an elementary school. I often relate Spanish to my background in classical music. We have to introduce it to kids and relate it to what they hear every day or to history. We recognize the intelligence kids have and their curiosity, and they love it!

There are occasions I play it in my house especially when writing, reading, researching, doing puzzles. There are bits of it popping up in modern things (DDR, Pump it Up, Stepmania, Beatmania) For the latter two, you can customize your own songs. I've seen plenty of dances/beats to some classic or modified classic music.