Wednesday, December 3, marks the opening night of the Holiday Pops season, a Boston musical tradition that guarantees getting you in the seasonal spirit. Every December through Christmas Eve, the Boston Pops perform a lineup of our favorite holiday songs – everything from pieces from “The Nutcracker” to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
This year, the festivities will last for three extra performances on December 26th and 27th, when the Pops will screen “Home Alone” and accompany the film with an original orchestral score. For the traditional Pops, long-time fans can look forward to a new addition to the lineup, which Conductor Keith Lockhart says is the result of a “brainstorm” he had over the summer. “A Soldier’s Carol” is a piece written by Broadway duo Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, and it reminisces on the Christmas truce of 1914, when soldiers on opposing sides of World War I called a truce on Christmas Eve, and celebrated the holiday together.
We got on the phone with Lockhart to talk about the upcoming Holiday Pops season, “A Soldier’s Carol,” and his favorite place to be in Boston during the holidays.
What can people expect from this year’s Holiday Pops season?
There are 37 performances at Symphony Hall, and in the regular holiday concerts, which have become a tradition for so many people around here, we always try to balance the things people expect to hear with some new experiences. Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride,” our own special Boston Pops version of the “12 Days of Christmas,” all those things will be there, but as well, we are presenting a brand new project, it’s a piece called “A Soldier’s Carol.” It was written by the Broadway writing team of Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, and it’s about the Christmas truce of 1914. It’s an amazing story about charity and humanity in the middle of war.
Any other new additions?
That’s the major change – we have hundreds of thousands of arrangements, and every year looks a little bit different than the previous year. There are always moments people expect, Santa coming to visit us of course, sing alongs with 2,000 people raising their voices in song with the Boston Pops, and iconic pieces like “Sleigh Ride.” But each year, we try to put in things that people haven’t experienced before, and the big new thing this year is “A Soldier’s Carol.”
What’s your favorite part about the holidays in Boston?
I think what we do with the Pops is one of the great holiday traditions in Boston, and I don’t get to experience too many other traditions, because I’m busy doing concerts in Symphony Hall. But to see the hundreds of thousands of people who come join us, to come away totally in the holiday experience is thrilling. It remains thrilling even though I’ve done it 20 times, to be so much a part of people’s holiday experiences. So, I would say my favorite place to be in December in Boston is right in the middle of Symphony Hall.
When does planning for each season start?
The 26th of December. We look at what we think went well, what needs to go better, and sometimes we have ideas about what we’d like to present that take years to accomplish, and sometimes, like in the case of the new piece we’re doing this year, it’s a brainstorm I had in the middle of the previous summer. But it’s a through-the-year process that all comes down to the wire tonight.
Tickets for the 2014 Holiday Pops are on sale now.
Image courtesy of Stu Rosner/BSO
