Updated 5:50 p.m. ET

With two concerts and a series of workshops for young musicians, the White House put a big spotlight on classical music Wednesday and sent a strong message that it's not just for stuffed shirts.

"Nothing mixes old and new like classical music," first lady Michelle Obama told students who spent the morning in music workshops and then attended an afternoon concert in which child prodigies shared the stage with some of classical music's biggest superstars.

"You can mix and blend your instruments in ways that Beethoven and Mozart never could have imagined," the first lady told the youngsters, pronouncing them "the classical music superstars of tomorrow."

Acclaimed pianist Awadagin Pratt plunked himself down on a piano bench next to 14-year-old Lucy Hattemer of Cincinnati to perform a Schubert duet on the East Room's Steinway. Renowned cellist Alisa Weilerstein, 27, was upstaged by her 8-year-old partner, Sujari Britt, a student at New York's Manhattan School of Music, when they performed a duet by Italian composer Luigi Boccherini.