Such a gloomy scenario could happen as traditional concertgoers pass away and fewer and fewer people pick up the slack.

The Kandinsky Trio wants to help change that, and Wednesday begins a four-day residency at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. The Virginia-based trio doesn't just tour the country playing concerts; it brings a program of extra-musical, interactive concepts to children of all backgrounds, most of whom have never been exposed to serious music.

Audiences don't hear music performed by three stuffed shirts; they participate in how it's made, how it works and why it makes them feel something. The point is simple: Educate youth about the pleasures of great music, or it will gather dust and be forgotten.

"It's important to note the arts are at a crisis point right now," says violinist Benedict Goodfriend, who teams up with cellist Alan Weinstein and pianist Elizabeth Bachelder. "Classical music is perceived as formal, unapproachable, and only for people who know a lot about it.

"That's one reason audiences have been dwindling at an alarming rate. And unless there's a complete shift in the attitudes of artists and presenters, I hate to think of what the next 20 years will bring."

The trio - named after turn-of-the- century Russian abstract painter Wassily Kandinsky - this week offers student performances,

The residency ends Saturday night with a public concert.

One of its most successful themes is "Coloring With the Kandinskys," in which the trio plays Haydn or Beethoven to a room full of schoolchildren.

Everyone is given sketch pads and pens, and draws whatever comes to mind as the music unfolds. The trio collects the sketches and improvises a short piece of music for each one - much to the joy of the students.

"It's one of the things we're most proud of," Goodfriend adds. "It isn't some generic school concert; it's interactive. We talk about the differences between abstract and realistic art, and then relate it to tonal or atonal music.

"The students draw to that, hold up their drawing and explain what they did. It's been 100 percent successful because they not only heard classical music being played, but participated in it."

The trio's creative approach to teaching is critical in building audiences to fill concert halls around the country, says Norb Bukowski, director of education for the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.

"They're making that first exposure to music exciting, interesting and open-ended," he says. "Their listeners are exploring a lot opportunities instead of just sitting in a theater and listening to music."