In an effort to make classical music relevant to a wider portion of society, institutions and musicians are increasingly seeking new ways of engaging with partners, social themes, and other types of music.  Topics such as climate change, diversity, and education are seeing an explosion of energy and attention, and organizations are seeking ways to bring these to the forefront in artistic as well as practical ways.

Such attempts are often explicitly placed as opening up classical music to new themes, locations and people. They are attempts to expand the borders of the discipline. The 2022 MCICM symposium will critically examine this area of interaction between classical music and society, exploring initiatives that seek to blur the traditional borders of classical music practice, while also discussing how such borders are still rigorously policed in certain circumstances.