The concept is simple: musicians make some time available on one particular day to answer questions on Twitter from fans, first-timers and new friends. It is an opportunity to connect musicians with their audience and share the stories of their musical love and passion, 140 characters at a time. And perhaps we’ll bust some classical music myths along the way.

An initiative by Lacey Huszcza and Marc van Bree, the website launched in 2010 with #askaconductor on December 8. On that day, more than 60 conductors from around the world engaged with hundreds of participants in more than 4,000 tweets.

Read more about #askaconductor (December 8, 2010); #askacomposer (March 4, 2011); #askthestrings (May 20, 2011) and #askavocalist (October 28, 2011). Coming up: #askaconductor redux! (December 16, 2011).

Who is behind this site?

The idea is not new. Museums and galleries did it before (see: askacurator.com). The success of that tremendous effort led to a conversation between Lacey Huszcza, Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and Marc van Bree, Director of Marketing at the Austin Lyric Opera and blogger at Dutch Perspective. “Wouldn’t it be cool to do something like that for classical music?” Well, here we are…

Any questions? Contact Lacey or Marc at info (at) askthemusicians.com or find us on Twitter @askthemusicians.