Jack Everly Signs Contract Extension with Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra

The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra announced today that it has signed Principal Pops Conductor Jack Everly, who is recognized throughout North American as a leader in innovative symphonic pops programming, to a contract extension that will keep the popular maestro and Richmond, Indiana native as the ISO's pops leader through the 2016-2017 season.

"Jack Everly is not only one of the leading Pops conductors in the country, but his extraordinary creativity in programming and the high regard in which he is held throughout the music world make him a vital part of our artistic team" said ISO President and CEO, Simon Crookall. "The musicians, staff and board of the ISO are delighted that Jack has agreed to extend his contract with us."

Commenting on the contract extension, Maestro Everly said, "I am so very honored to have been asked to extend my contract as Principal Pops Conductor with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Making music with our musicians and for our audiences over the preceding ten years has certainly been an ongoing pleasure for me. Here's to a wonderful future!"

Jack Everly has served as Principal Pops Conductor of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra since 2002 and has been the Music Director of the ISO's holiday production of Duke Energy Yuletide Celebration since 1994. In 1999, he also joined the ISO as Music Director of its groundbreaking Symphonic Pops Consortium (SPC) project, which he launched to create innovative thematic pops programming featuring original orchestral charts and arrangements that are accented by lavish costuming, theatrical lighting and other production elements to enhance the concert experience for audiences. During his tenure, Maestro Everly has created 11 original SPC productions that have been performed by other orchestras in nearly 40 cities across North America with 120 bookings of these presentations totaling more than 350 performances for pops music lovers in the United States and Canada.

Over the years, Maestro Everly has created original pops programming such as The Beat Goes On: Music of the Baby Boomers, From Vienna to Broadway, Sci-Fi Spectacular, The Music of Billy Joel and More starring Michael Cavanaugh, Pops Goes Vegas, The 1950s: The Golden Age of Black and White and Mysterioso, many of which originated in Indianapolis. In October 2011, he will conduct his program titled Irving Berlin: From Ragtime to Ritzes at Carnegie Hall with The New York Pops. His popular holiday productions of Yuletide Celebration also have visited other cities such as Washington, D.C. (at the Kennedy Center), Detroit, Portland, Seattle and Birmingham, Alabama. In 2004, he recorded the ISO's first-ever pops compact disc, Yuletide Celebration (Volume I), comprising many popular favorites from past holiday productions that also featured Sandi Patty and tenor Daniel Rodriguez as soloists.

In addition to his post in Indianapolis, he also serves as Principal Pops Conductor with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Canada's capital city of Ottawa, and Pops Conductor of the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra. Maestro Everly was named Music Director for the National Symphony Orchestra's 2010 National Memorial Day Concert and A Capitol Fourth, two of PBS' highest-rated programs that air live in HD from the west lawn of the United States Capitol and he will return there for his second consecutive set of visits this year as well. Previously, he was appointed by Mikhail Baryshnikov as Music Director of the American Ballet Theatre, where he served for 14 years. On Broadway, he teamed with Marvin Hamlisch to conduct many of his hits, including The Goodbye Girl, They're Playing Our Song and A Chorus Line, and he also worked with the legendary Carol Channing in two separate productions of Hello Dolly! In television and film, Maestro Everly has appeared on In Performance at the White House and conducted the songs for Disney's animated classic, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He has served as Music Director on many Broadway cast recordings and conducted the critically-acclaimed Everything's Coming Up Roses: The Complete Overtures of Broadway's Jule Styne.

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