Boston Pops Will Tour Florida Next Month

The Boston Pops and conductor Keith Lockhart will showcase the extraordinary range of "America's Orchestra" in five Florida cities from February 3-9, presenting a program focused on our country's most celebrated composers, including Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, and George Gershwin, as well as film music favorites from the incomparable Boston Pops Laureate Conductor John Williams. The orchestra will also perform crowd-pleasing orchestrations of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and ABBA's Dancing Queen, and a new Beatles sing-along including "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," "Twist and Shout," and "Hey Jude."

Keith Lockhart will celebrate his 20th anniversary season as Boston Pops Conductor during the orchestra's 2015 spring season, May 6, June 13, at Symphony Hall in Boston. "The Very Best of the Boston Pops" Florida tour coincides with the 20th anniversary of Mr. Lockhart's appointment as Boston Pops conductor, which took place on February 6, 1995. Mr. Lockhart succeeded John Williams, who held the post for 13 years, following the legendary Arthur Fiedler, who was at the helm of the orchestra for nearly 50 years.

"One of my favorite parts of being the conductor of the Boston Pops is the privilege of taking the orchestra on tour and sharing some of its unique collection of great music with Pops fans across the country," said Boston Pops Conductor Keith Lockhart. "In typical Pops style, 'The Very Best of the Boston Pops' tour program will include music from some of America's great masters including Leonard Bernstein, George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, and Aaron Copland, as well as film music classics from our own Boston Pops Laureate Conductor John Williams, alongside such popular favorites as Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, ABBA's Dancing Queen, and an Beatles sing-along. There is only one place you can hear all this great music performed in a single concert-at a Boston Pops concert-and we are thrilled to share it with our fans far and wide."

MORE ON "THE VERY BEST OF THE BOSTON POPS" PROGRAM
Since establishing the Pops genre in 1885, the year of the orchestra's founding, the Boston Pops has cultivated an impressive library of music reflecting over a century of America's wide-ranging musical tastes. "The Very Best of the Boston Pops" draws from the 3,400 titles in the orchestra's library-music prepared by some of the best arrangers and composers from every generation since the orchestra's founding 129 years ago. This vast collection-virtually all of which is the exclusive domain of the Boston Pops-includes everything from Beatles medleys, college fight songs, American songbook classics, film music, and Broadway scores for full orchestra, to jazz standards, full-length symphonies, sing-alongs for every occasion, and contemporary pop hits, as well as original works commissioned especially for the one and only Boston Pops Orchestra.

The Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra and Keith Lockhart will showcase the orchestra's wide-ranging repertoire with a program focused on the great American composers. The concert kicks off with a performance of the overture to Leonard Bernstein's Candide, followed by "Buckaroo Holiday" from Aaron Copland's cowboy ballet Rodeo, and an excerpt from Antonín Dvo?ák's New World Symphony, the Czech composer's symphonic tribute to America. The Boston Pops then perform Don Sebesky's arrangement of the Duke Ellington jazz standard, It Don't Mean a Thing, and American composer Louis Gottschalk's iconic Grande Tarantelle featuring pianist Michael Chertock.

After a brief intermission, Keith and the Pops will perform Chris Walden's orchestrations of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and ABBA's Dancing Queen. The post-intermission set will also feature selections from Boston Pops Laureate Conductor John Williams' celebrated film scores to the movies Harry Potter and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. The concert concludes with an opportunity for the entire audience to join the Boston Pops in a Beatles sing-along.

Keith Lockhart celebrates his twentieth anniversary as Boston Pops Conductor in 2015. He became the twentieth conductor of the Boston Pops in 1995, adding his artistic vision to the Pops tradition established by his predecessors John Williams and Arthur Fiedler. Mr. Lockhart has worked with a wide array of established artists from virtually every corner of the entertainment world, while also promoting programs that focus on talented young musicians from the Tanglewood Music Center, Boston Conservatory, and Berklee College of Music. During his twenty-year tenure, he has conducted nearly 1,600 Boston Pops concerts and introduced the innovative JazzFest and EdgeFest series, featuring prominent jazz and indie artists performing with the Pops. Mr. Lockhart has also introduced concert performances of full-length Broadway shows, including Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel and Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, and the PopSearch and High School Sing-Off competitions. Under his leadership, the Boston Pops has commissioned several new works-including The Dream Lives On, a tribute to the Kennedy brothers, which was premiered in May 2010 during the 125th anniversary season-and dozens of new arrangements.

Audiences worldwide love Keith Lockhart's inimitable style, expressed not only through his consummate music-making, but also by his unique ability to speak directly to the audience about the music to which he feels so passionately committed. He and the Boston Pops have released five self-produced recordings-2013's A Boston Pops Christmas-Live from Symphony Hall, as well as Sleigh Ride, America, Oscar & Tony, and The Red Sox Album-and also recorded eight albums with RCA Victor-Runnin' Wild: The Boston Pops Play Glenn Miller, American Visions, the Grammy-nominated The Celtic Album, Holiday Pops, A Splash of Pops, Encore!, the Latin Grammy-nominated The Latin Album, and My Favorite Things: A Richard Rodgers Celebration. Keith Lockhart has made 75 television shows with the Boston Pops, including a 2009 concert featuring jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, and special guests Sting, John Mayer, and Steven Tyler, and the annual Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular, broadcast nationally for many years on the A&E and CBS television networks. He has also led many Holiday Pops telecasts, as well as 38 new programs for PBS's Evening at Pops (1970-2004). The 2015 "Very Best of the Boston Pops" tour of the southeastern United States is his 40th national tour with the Pops. He has also led Boston Pops concerts at Carnegie Hall and Radio City Music Hall, and brought the music of "America's Orchestra" overseas in four tours of Japan and Korea. Mr. Lockhart has led the Boston Pops in the national anthem for numerous major sports events.

Keith Lockhart currently serves as principal conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra in London, which he led in the June 2012 Diamond Jubilee Concert for Queen Elizabeth II, and as artistic director of the Brevard Music Center summer institute and festival in North Carolina. He has appeared as a guest conductor with virtually every major symphonic ensemble in North America, as well as several in Asia and Europe. He was music director of the Utah Symphony from 1998 to 2009, and led that orchestra in performances at the 2002 Olympic Games, as well as on its first European tour in two decades. Prior to coming to Boston, he was the associate conductor of both the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops orchestras, as well as music director of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra.

Born in Poughkeepsie, NY, Keith Lockhart began his musical studies with piano lessons at the age of seven. He holds degrees from Furman University and Carnegie Mellon University, and honorary doctorates from several American universities. Mr. Lockhart holds the Julian and Eunice Cohen Boston Pops Conductor chair. Visit keithlockhart.com for further information.