Regina Alongi
Connector Editor
“I don’t listen to music,” Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart disclosed in an interview with The Connector. “I listen to music all the time for work and the last thing I want to hear is more music!” Naturally, when your full-time job is studying music, why would you spend your leisure time doing the same?
55-year-old Lockhart is the music director and principal conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, a title he has held for 20 years. He took over this position in 1994, succeeding the legendary John Williams.
In college at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., Lockhart was a double major in German and piano performance. One might assume he took up German as a counterpart to his musical studies, but this actually wasn’t the case, though it was a convenient coincidence.
“I took a lot of German in high school… I already had about three-quarters of the credits I needed so I went ahead and finished the degree.” This did help with the music side of his studies, though.
“I spent half of my junior year studying in Vienna where I got to study both music and German.”
Around this time was when he decided he wanted to pursue conducting as a career.
“When I was finishing my undergrad, I realized I was a good pianist, but I probably was not going to have a career on the concert stages of the world,” Lockhart said.
His piano professor asked if he had ever considered conducting; he thought it would be a good fit because of Lockhart’s teaching/coaching mentality and his interest in the analytical side of music, along with his desire to perform. After trying it out, he found he had some natural ability and truly enjoyed it, so he headed in that direction.
In response to my comment that conducting and being the musical director for an ensemble such as the Pops must be a lot of work, he joked, “I always tell people I went into it because I was lazy!”
Like most musicians, choosing a favorite song, or favorite piece to conduct in this case, is like picking a favorite child. He quoted conductor “Skitch” Henderson, founder of the New York Pops orchestra, in saying that his favorite piece is “whatever I’m doing now.” He does have a fondness, though, for conducting big choral works, such as Giuseppe Verdi’s “Messa de Requiem.”
Currently, Lockhart is working on Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem” for a performance in Dayton, Ohio in March 2015. He will also be working on a recording project in London with American violinist Anna Akiko Meyers and the London Symphony Orchestra, performing Leonard Bernstein’s “Serenade.”
Fun facts: Lockhart said that if he could work with any musician, dead or alive, it would be the aforementioned Bernstein. His favorite beer is, in great Boston fashion, Samuel Adams’ Octoberfest and his favorite pizza toppings are spicy Italian sausage and spinach.
The Boston Pops’ winter schedule is one that can be comparable to a seasoned rock band… but more grueling.
“[We are] doing something in the range of 41 concerts between Dec. 3 and Dec. 27.”
Lockhart and the Boston Pops Orchestra take the stage at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium on Sunday, Dec. 14. Tickets range from $48 to $124 and can be purchased here.
