Emily Isaacson leads a Classical Uprising

Emily Isaacson remembers attending classical concerts as a teenager, feeling the music viscerally, connecting with the sound. The music was exciting, passionate — it made her want to move her body. It let her tap into feelings she could not put into words.

At the same time, she felt a disconnect between the way the music moved her and the way traditional concerts wanted Isaacson to listen to it — in silence, in a cathedral-like hall, following unwritten rules. She wants to “clap between movements and sway in the aisles,” she says. And so she has made it her work to bring music to the community as a shared experience and a call to action.