A Baton for the Beatles
BSO SuperPops Preview
When his older sister went to see The Beatles
perform in 1965, Jack Everly wasn’t much interested.
“I was a late bloomer,” says the BSO’s principal pops
conductor. “I liked classical as a kid. But when I heard
The Fab Four
‘Eleanor Rigby’ with strings, I thought, ‘What’s
going on here?’” A few years later, he recalls, “Arthur
Fiedler, of all people, came out with an album of their music” and Everly was hooked.
“Now I realize what a legacy of music they left us.”
That legacy will be celebrated at the Classical Mystery Tour concert (Nov 28–30),
a Beatles tribute performed by the group The Fab Four in its Baltimore debut.*
The Beatles isn’t the only nod to nostalgia on the 2014–2015 Pops calendar. Everly
will conduct the music to the classic Singin’ in the Rain with the BSO (Mar 26 –29).
“They’ve isolated the actors’ soundtrack and removed the MGM music,” explains Everly.
“so we are accompanying Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor, thanks to the miracles
of modern technology.” The feat, Everly concedes, is “not for the faint of heart.”
He employs a video monitor showing the movie and an analogue clock to help him
synchronize the music as the audience watches the film on a screen above the orchestra.
Mandy Patinkin, known most recently for his role as Saul Berenson on Showtime’s
“Homeland” series, spent the early part of his career on the Broadway stage, originating
such roles as Che in Evita and the artist George Seurat in Sunday in the Park with
George. Patinkin’s “Dress Casual” concert (Jan 23–25) will feature songs from Irving
Berlin and Stephen Sondheim to Harry Chapin. Another celebrity singer, Patti Austin,
will sing “Ella and the Duke” (Feb 20–22). The Grammy and Oscar nominee will
perform such classics as “I Got it Bad” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing (if it ain’t got that swing).”
The Pops season will open with Everly’s tribute to Broadway, “Standing Ovations,”
with musical theater stars performing songs from Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables
and Wicked. And it will close with a tribute to John Williams, beloved composer of
scores for such movies as Star Wars, E.T. and Memoirs of a Geisha.
RESOUNDING
DISCOVERIES
JOIN US
Sundays at 5:30 PM
for our 2014–2015
Concert Season
HÉLÈNE GRIMAUD,
PIANO
September 21, 2014
BELCEA QUARTET
October 26, 2014
DANIELLE DE NIESE,
SOPRANO
November 16, 2014
STEVEN ISSERLIS, CELLO
WITH CONNIE SHIH, PIANO
December 7, 2014
GIDON KREMER, VIOLIN
WITH DANIIL TRIFONOV,
PIANO
January 18, 2015
*The BSO is not performing on these concerts.
JERUSALEM QUARTET
February 15, 2015
teacher, Carl Bamberger, used to tell me
about walking from café to café in Vienna
and hearing the music from one café overlapping with the waltzes from the next,”
she says. Alsop recalls Bamberger’s theory
that those cafes were Ravel’s inspiration.
Guest conductors will be stepping in
throughout the season to present such
beloved works as Brahms’s Symphony
No. 2, led by Hannu Lintu (Oct 31 &
Nov 1), Bruckner’s Eighth, with Gunther
Herbig conducting (Jan 16 & 18), and
Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet FantasyOverture conducted by Cristian Macelaru
(Mar 6 & 8).
Concertmaster Jonathan Carney and
Associate Concertmaster Madeline Adkins
perform J. S. Bach’s Concerto for Two
Violins in D Minor (Feb. 14 & 15). The
conductor, Nicholas McGegan, will present
an Off the Cuff talk about the work and
legacy of Bach and his family.
But it doesn’t stop there: Alsop also conducts Rimsky-Korsakov and Prokofiev
(May 8 & 9), BSO Principal Oboe Katherine Needleman will perform Vaughan
Williams’s Oboe Concerto (Apr 17 &
19), and Didi Balle, the BSO’s playwrightin-residence, presents her compelling
“Shostakovich: Notes for S [[