Our Approach
CSOT creates gateways to classical music through performance, discovery, and collaboration. These three principles shape how we develop projects, support artists, engage audiences, and extend the life of the work beyond the concert stage.
Performance
Performance is at the center of CSOT’s work. Through concerts, staged projects, recordings, and premieres, we create opportunities for artists and audiences to experience classical music as a living, evolving art form.
Our programs span choral music, opera, orchestral and chamber performance, solo repertoire, and new compositions. Each project is shaped with care for artistic excellence, the strengths of the participating artists, and the experience we want to create for the audience.
CSOT’s performances take many forms, from free public concerts and choral masterworks to staged works, intimate recitals, and studio recordings. The scale may change from project to project, but the aim remains the same: to create experiences in which the music, the artists, and the audience are fully present to one another.
Performance also creates possibility. For artists, it can provide a platform, a professional opportunity, or a meaningful step forward in a developing career. For audiences, it can offer a first encounter with a work, a composer, a performer, or an aspect of classical music they may not have experienced before.
At CSOT, performance is not treated as an end in itself. It is a gateway—to discovery, connection, and a deeper relationship with the art form.
Discovery
Discovery is the process of creating new points of entry into classical music. Every CSOT project is designed to invite curiosity, encourage exploration, and make the art form more approachable without compromising its depth or artistic integrity.
For audiences, discovery may begin with hearing a composer for the first time, experiencing a live performance, or encountering a story that offers a new perspective on familiar repertoire. For artists, it may be an opportunity to explore new roles, develop original work, or participate in projects that expand their artistic practice.
Discovery also extends beyond the concert hall. Through recordings, published scores, educational activity books, children's literature, and other creative resources, CSOT creates opportunities to encounter classical music in different ways and at different stages of life. Whether introducing young readers to music through The Musical Adventures activity books, sharing stories through Growing Up Zeke, publishing new compositions for future performers, or exploring the connections between music and everyday life through projects such as Songs from the Kitchen, these initiatives are designed to spark curiosity and encourage continued exploration long after the final applause.
By creating multiple pathways into the art form, CSOT encourages lifelong engagement with classical music—inviting each new experience to become the beginning of another discovery.
Collaboration
Collaboration is fundamental to the way CSOT works. We believe that meaningful artistic experiences are strengthened through partnership, bringing together performers, ensembles, scholars, presenters, and community organizations in pursuit of shared artistic goals.
Throughout its history, CSOT has collaborated with organizations whose expertise and artistic vision enrich the work we create together. Partnerships with organizations such as the H. T. Burleigh Society, the Brooklyn Ecumenical Choir, Grace Chorale of Brooklyn, Riverside Orchestra, Bronx Arts Ensemble, and Harlem Chamber Players have expanded opportunities for artists, strengthened performances, and connected audiences with projects that might not otherwise have been possible.
Collaboration also creates space for new ideas to flourish. Whether commissioning and presenting new works, developing educational initiatives, producing recordings, or building multidisciplinary projects, CSOT values the exchange of knowledge, creativity, and experience that comes from working alongside others. These relationships continue to shape the organization's growth while extending its reach into new communities and artistic disciplines.
By building partnerships rooted in mutual respect, shared purpose, and artistic excellence, CSOT continues to create gateways to classical music that are broader, more inclusive, and more impactful than any one organization could achieve alone.