A new educational initiative sponsored by the Chicago Symphony’s Ravinia Festival combines the classics with modern pop music overtones, in the hope of making the genre less intimidating. It’s a strange effect, but John van Rhein says that if it works, it’s worth it. “If such tactics are what’s needed to turn on kids to a 173-year-old symphonic masterpiece, so be it… The project is one of many comparable initiatives undertaken by classical music organizations across the nation… In so doing, they are taking up some of the slack from an educational system that has failed miserably to keep classical music in the public school curriculum.”