By Cheryl Sherry
Post-Crescent
It’s been said there’s no place like New England for the holidays, where sleigh rides through fresh-fallen snow and cuddling by a crackling fire are the essence of Christmas.
But if a trip to the East Coast is not included in your holiday plans, the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra and conductor Keith Lockhart will bring a cherished New England Christmas to you.
As part of its 2006 national holiday tour, The Boston Pops returns to the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center in downtown Appleton at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. The concert will feature renowned American soprano Indra Thomas and the internationally renowned 40-voice Gloriae Dei Cantores (Singers to the Glory of God) choir.
The Pops’ ever-popular national holiday tour began Nov. 29 in New York and ends Wednesday in Milwaukee. It coincides with the holiday series at Symphony Hall in Boston, which will run from Dec. 11 to 31.
Holiday Pops concerts began in 1974 with a three-concert series at Symphony Hall. Today, the orchestra performs for a total audience of nearly 900,000 people in Boston, across the country and around the world, and reaches millions more via television broadcasts.
We chatted by phone with Lockhart, who marks his 12th season with the Boston Pops. He said it is great to be coming back to Appleton, a temporary holiday home away from home.
“There are few venues that are that intimate and that manage to have the Pops every year,” he said of the PAC. “We are honored people so much want to have us back that they go through that effort. There are places on tour that become home and Appleton is one of those.”
Q: What do you think it is about music that kicks off the holidays for people?
A: It’s really a phenomenon; I think it has to do with the emotional connection everyone has with the holidays. And so much of that has a soundtrack to it. It’s the music you grew up with, that your parents played while you trimmed the tree. It’s the music you sang in church — it’s all of those things. For kids, it seems music is part of the wonder of the season, and for adults it triggers the memory banks. And the Pops is so central to that; people grew up with the old Arthur Fiedler records. Certainly it is the time we really, really embrace traditions and want to go back to what we know. I think that’s what sets people off and what makes people come to our concerts and everybody else’s for that matter.
Q: Tell me about the song selection for this year’s concert; it seems you have a little bit of everything.
A: The people who come to hear this concert, not just in Appleton, but across the country, is the widest demographic we play for than any other time of the year: Grandparents and their grandchildren and everyone in between. So what we try to do is play something where everyone in the audience can say, “Oh, they programmed that just for me.”
Q: Tell me about working with Indra Thomas. Is it a challenge for an orchestra to work with a singer?
A: Oh, no. For one thing you need singers for holiday concerts because the tradition is so vocal. And Indra has just a glorious voice. It’s really one of the best young voices I know in the opera world. And she has a great, glorious opera presence.
