“Neeta Helms of Classical Movements has been a pioneer of cultural diplomacy for more than 26 years. Be it the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Vietnam or the Balkans in the early 1990s, South Africa immediately after apartheid, Iraq during the 2003 invasion or Myanmar this decade, Classical Movements produces trailblazing tours for orchestras and choirs to 145 countries, including the Minnesota Orchestra’s recent tours to Cuba and South Africa. Relentlessly pursuing meaningful collaborations—whether with refugees, under-served musicians or overlooked nations—Classical Movements also commissions brand-new music for the world’s most celebrated performers and donates to hundreds of organizations and causes that are important to all life on Earth.”

~ 2019 Classical:NEXT Innovation Award

The 10th anniversary season of Prague Summer Nights drew a record number of applicants and featured celebrated conductor Marin Alsop, marking a decade of exceptional training and performances for young artists.

2025
PSN turns 10 with distinguished guest conductor Marin Alsop

Classical Movements president Neeta Helms was honored with the J. Reilly Lewis Award for Outstanding Contributions to Choral Music, recognizing her lifelong dedication to advancing international choral collaboration.

2024
J. Reilly Lewis Award for Outstanding Contributions to Choral Music

New work by Victoria Poleva, Turn the River premiers at the Kennedy Center marking the 100th new work commissioned by Classical Movements.

2023
More than 100 new commissions

Classical Movements celebrates three decades of excellence with a musical Gala for family, friends, and past clients.

2023
Classical Movements turns 30 with Gala Celebration

With our experienced long standing staff with decades of experience, CM producing 22 tours with weeks and months to plan between March and June of 2022.

2022
CM Back on the Road: Touring returns

In 2021, Neeta Helms, founder and president of Classical Movements, was named one of Musical America’s “Top 30 Professionals of the Year,”. This was the second time Helms was awarded this honor.

2021
Musical America: Top 30 Professionals of the Year

With International travel still impossible, CM brings Prague to Alexandria, with 3 productions of the Magic Flute in the Secret Garden. During this year CM also produced two US concert tours.

2021
PSN in Alexandria (Alexandria Summer Nights)

Covid shuts down over 40 tours, and Classical Movements issues generous refunds. During the uncertainty CM hosts first live, in-person concerts for audiences of 50 in our Secret Garden, growing to over 40 concerts that year, with more than 100 concerts before live concerts resumed in September 2021.

2020
First Live Audience Concert in the USA during COVID

In 2018, Classical Movements arranged and produced the Minnesota Orchestra’s landmark tour to South Africa—the first-ever visit by a professional U.S. orchestra to the country. CM managed every facet of the tour’s planning and execution, creating a deeply meaningful cultural exchange that resonated across two continents.

2018
First Professional U.S. Orchestra Tour to South Africa

Of the 11 brand-new works the Eric Daniel Helms New Music Program commissions (for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Children’s Chorus of Washington, respectively), 65% are written by female composers, including American Composers Forum co-founder Libby Larsen, the youngest musical Pulitzer recipient Caroline Shaw and the multi-Grammy-winning Joan Tower, penning her sixth Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman.

2017
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Female Composers

Marking the 100th birthday of President John F. Kennedy by celebrating one of his most enduring initiatives, the Peace Corps, Classical Movements and Kennedy Center co-present the largest and most diverse Serenade! Washington, D.C. Choral Festival to date—16 choirs from 12 countries premiering 11 new compositions on 14 concerts over 7 days—all inspired by JFK’s treasured ideals of justice, freedom, courage, service and gratitude.

2017
Serenade! Celebrates JFK and the Peace Corps

Seeking to stimulate the growth and foster the development of India’s own distinctive choral traditions—alongside the burgeoning influence of Western classical music in cities like New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai—Classical Movements establishes the India Choral Fellowship.

2016
India Choral Fellowship

Classical Movements launches Prague Summer Nights: Young Artists Music Festival, a month-long opera and orchestral training program for conservatory-age students, in the Czech Republic. Making his directorial debut, legendary baritone Sherrill Milnes and his wife, Maria Zouves, serve as stage directors for a production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the grand Estates Theatre.

2015
Prague Summer Nights Launched

With just 110 days’ notice, Classical Movements produces a tour to Cuba for the Minnesota Orchestra. Leveraging its well-established ties to bypass decades of consular stalemate, the tour is a triumph, including two performances at the Teatro Nacional on Plaza de la Revolución, which were broadcast live around the world—a substantial achievement, itself. CM ensures the safe passage of musicians and instruments, all into a country with no official diplomatic ties to the United States.

2015
Historic Cuban Tour for the Minnesota Orchestra

Classical Movements purchases and moves into a 230-year-old home at 711 Princess Street—the rectory for the famed Christ Church in Alexandria (the same church attended by George Washington and Robert E. Lee).

2014
New (Even Older) Home from 1785

Classical Movements, Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, Chorus America and the United States Air Force Band collaborate on the “Raise It Up! Anthem for America” concert, an exciting group-sing on the National Mall celebrating the bicentennial of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” featuring guest conductors Francisco Núñez and Eric Whitacre.

2014
CM and Eric Whitacre Unite Thousands for Anthem’s 200th

Americans for the Arts, the United States’ leading arts advocacy organization, awards Classical Movements the BCA10: Best Businesses Partnering with the Arts in America. Previous winners include American Airlines, Bank of America, Boeing, Disney, Hallmark, Macy’s and Microsoft.

2014
Awarded Best Business Partnering with the Arts in American

South African Ambassador to the U.S., Ebrahim Rasool, invites original Ihlombe! participants to perform at the official United States memorial service for Nelson Mandela at Washington National Cathedral. Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, ambassadors, foreign dignitaries and celebrities are in attendance.

2013
Biden and Kerry Attend Mandela Memorial Featuring CM clients

Two Decades Touring, 20 World Premieres Classical Movements celebrates 20 years of business and the Eric Daniel Helms New Music Program’s 20th commission: Bright Sheng’s A Porter’s Song, written for and performed by longtime clients Yale Glee Club

2012
Two Decades Touring, 20 World Premieres

After an optimistic announcement by Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi and an historic visit by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Classical Movements begins working in Myanmar (formerly Burma) with a major tour by Yale Schola Cantorum, the Masaaki Suzuki-led Juilliard415 and alumni from the University of Michigan.

2011
First to arrange choir tours to Myanmar

Classical Movements launches its hometown festival, the Serenade! Washington, D.C. Choral Festival, with a host of concerts throughout the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. Serenade eventually grows to over 80 choirs from 40 countries.

2011
Serenade! Washington, D.C. Choral Festival Launched

In Havana, on July 4, Classical Movements arranges the first joint concert for Cuban and American choirs, including the largest group ever to receive a proper license from the U.S. Treasury Department: the 210-member Yale Alumni Chorus.

2010
American 4th of July in Havana, Cuba

Classical Movements launches the Ihlombe! South African Choral Festival with Morgan State University Choir and Pacific Boychoir among the initial participants. Ihlombe eventually grows to over 120 choirs to be one of the largest international choral gatherings in South Africa.

2009
Ihlombe! South African Choral Festival Launched

Google and 21C Media contract out all travel and logistics to Classical Movements for the debut of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, where e-musicians from across the globe perform live at Carnegie Hall. Google—still CM’s only for-profit client—pays for a reprise, two years later, at the Sydney Opera House in Australia.

2009
YouTube Symphony Orchestra Goes Live

Neeta Helms, Classical Movements’ founder, takes over as president and sole owner.

2008
Neeta takes the “Helm”

Askonas Holt invites Classical Movements to organize the first American tour by Venezuela’s Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar, conducted by a 27-year-old Gustavo Dudamel. Venues include the charismatic leader’s eventual home: Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles, California.

2007
Gustavo Dudamel, Simón Bolívar Debut

Classical Movements launches its Melodía! South American Music Festival.

2006
Melodía! South American Music Festival Launched

Classical Movements establishes the Eric Daniel Helms New Music Program to commission works from both American and international composers such as John Corigliano, Joan Tower, Christopher Rouse, Stephen Paulus, Michael Gordon and Caroline Shaw, as well as Paquito D’Riviera, Tania León, Ēriks Ešenvalds, Piret Rips-Laul, Mokale Koapeng and Oscar Escalada, the program’s inaugural composer.

2005
Announcing the Eric Daniel Helms New Music Program

With the addition of several new nations and venues throughout Latin America, Classical Movements’ destinations list crosses over the century mark—100 countries.

2004
One. Hundred. Countries.

The U.S. Department of State and the Kennedy Center invited the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra to perform in Washington alongside Leonard Slatkin’s National Symphony Orchestra. With only six weeks’ notice and missiles still lighting the Baghdad sky, Classical Movements coordinated the ensemble’s complex evacuation and travel—securing visas, arranging military flights to Jordan, and navigating a D.C. blizzard. The historic Kennedy Center concert was attended by President George W. Bush, ambassadors, cabinet members, and other dignitaries.

2003
Iraqi and U.S. Symphonies Unite at Kennedy Center for President Bush

Classical Movements buys a building on Cameron Street, dated back to 1850, and moves its headquarters to Alexandria, Virginia’s historic Old Town neighborhood.

2003
New Office in Old Town, Alexandria

Classical Movements launches its first festival, the Rhapsody! Children’s Music Festival, in Vienna, Salzburg and Prague.

2002
Rhapsody! Children’s Music Festival in Europe Launched

Classical Movements helps plan and launch the inaugural Youth Orchestra of the Americas tour—Plácido Domingo’s pioneering, Latin Grammy-winning orchestra of brilliant youths from the entire Western Hemisphere. This marks the first of many tours with CM.

2001
Plácido Domingo, YOA Debut

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, Classical Movements has the entire New York Philharmonic flying home from Germany. For 4 long days, all flights in and out of the United States were grounded. Undeterred, CM has the NYPO and music director Kurt Masur on the first flight home, out of Frankfurt, on September 15. Immediately following the terror attacks in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania, the company has to quickly retool both travel and performance arrangements for three major clients: Boston Symphony, National Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

2001
September 11th: NY Phil Stranded

By the turn of the century, operating solely as Classical Movements, the company is working in more than 80 countries. In addition to Choral Arts Society of Washington and National Symphony, the client list includes: New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Washington Bach Consort, Mendelssohn Club of Pittsburgh, Choir of the College of William and Mary and VocalEssence.

2000
Classical Movements, Now in 80 Countries

Classical Movements launches its first festival, the Rhapsody! Children’s Music Festival, in Vienna, Salzburg and Prague.

1999
Tours to BBC Proms, Edinburgh, Salzburg and Lucerne Festivals

Classical Movements’ first road trip with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra is a true blockbuster, featuring superstar tenor Andrea Bocelli selling out America’s biggest sporting complexes like Madison Square Garden and the United Center on his “Opera for the Masses” tour.

1998
Andrea Bocelli and Pittsburgh Symphony Pack Arenas on U.S. Tour

Numerous other countries are added across three continents: South America (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay); West Africa (Senegal, Mali, Ghana, Gambia); East Africa (Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Morocco, Egypt); South Asia (Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia).

1997
More Destinations, More Tours

Classical Movements begins running tours to Cuba, as well as several countries in the Middle East, including Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Israel.

1996
Touring Cuba and the Middle East

The National Symphony Orchestra engages Classical Movements to operate a two-week U.S. tour for their 1997 season. The company’s first professional orchestra client, it’s the start of long relationship—34 tours and counting.

1995
Classical Movements & National Symphony Orchestra

Due to the expansion of instrumental and choral clientele, Classical Movements is incorporated as a division of Blue Heart Travel.

1995
Doing business as Classical Movements

Following the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square, Blue Heart is one of the first travel companies to add China to its destinations and becomes the very first American company to tour Croatia, after the end of the Bosnian War. As soon as the American flag is raised over the brand-new U.S. Embassy in Hanoi, Blue Heart begins touring Vietnam.

1995
Maiden Voyages to China, Croatia, Vietnam

With apartheid finally abolished, Blue Heart begins touring to South Africa soon after Nelson Mandela is elected president. New destinations in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Turkey and many Eastern European countries are added, too.

1994
Tours to South Africa, Turkey, Eastern Europe

Blue Heart takes the Choral Arts Society of Washington on tour to Russia with the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich, the cellist who had defected back in 1974. Just days before departure, Russia finds itself in the throes of a constitutional crisis, involving deadly protests and the barricading of its Parliament building. Undaunted, choir, orchestra and maestro “Slava” press forward, coming together for a landmark concert in Moscow—the first time anything other than a military parade had occurred on Red Square. In front of an audience of some 100,000, including President Boris Yeltsin, Russia is opened to the Western world, with millions more worldwide watching and listening to the historic live broadcast.

1993
Rostropovich, NSO and Choral Arts Make History in Moscow

1992
Blue Heart Travel Begins: Tours to Russia and Ukraine

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