Boston’s Magic Maestro

THIRTY YEARS AGO, Keith Lockhart took on the mantle of the Boston Pops from world-famous conductors John Williams and Arthur Fiedler. Lockhart was 35, and he was terrified.

A small-town Poughkeepsie, New York, native, Lockhart had previously served as the associate conductor of both the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops. But when he became the Julian and Eunice Cohen Boston Pops Conductor in 1995, his star catapulted.

Suddenly, Lockhart was a huge celebrity being photographed for People magazine, producing albums with his boyish grin on the cover and getting Grammy nominations. His first album with the Boston Pops, “Runnin’ Wild,” shows him momentarily airborne in a tuxedo jacket and a pair of Converse sneakers. Who knew conducting would be such an athletic job?

That album would go on to reach No. 1 on Billboard’s Crossover chart in its first week of release, and those very sneakers were recently included in an exhibition at the Wang Theatre’s Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame. Now, 30 years later, that agile jump, which took two hours on a trampoline to capture, seems as far away as the album.

“I’m not sure I could do that album cover anymore,” laughs Lockhart, although you’d never guess he was 65 from his energetic stage performances. “You know, when you’re 35 years old, you don’t understand what a long-term commitment is. So, it’s odd, and wonderful, to look around and realize that I’ve spent almost half my life in this position.”

What surprised Lockhart wasn’t just his abrupt celebrity, but how pervasive the culture scene was in Boston. He recalls walking down Massachusetts Ave. after a late night out with friends, and two workers cleaning the windows of an ATM turned around and said, “Hey, that’s Keith Lockhart,” with a classic Boston accent.

“As I walked on, I thought, ‘What kind of town have I found myself in where the guys who are washing the windows recognize the conductor of an orchestra?’” says Lockhart. “I thought right then, ‘I’ve hit the jackpot.’”

THEN AND NOW

The Boston Pops is a storied and special organization. It was established in 1885 with the specific purpose of bringing “concerts of a lighter kind of music” to Boston, said Henry Lee Higginson, the founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

This was significant for several reasons. First, the Pops was established as a separate entity from the orchestra, showing what a priority musical diversity was. Second, it was intended to bring music, both classical and more popular, to Bostonians who didn’t regularly attend the symphony. In that way, it was a very early plan for making music accessible.

Lockhart has seen the organization change significantly over his 30-year tenure, but that mission to bring music to all remains the same. In recent years the demographics of audiences attending Boston Pops concerts have increasingly become more diverse, in both age and racial background.

Younger audiences are enticed by pop culture tie-ins like the Pops performing “America the Beautiful” with Mary J. Blige and Marc Anthony during the pregame show of the 2002 Super Bowl and guest stars like Steve Martin, Billy Porter and Queen Latifah joining Lockhart at Symphony Hall.

More diverse programming, including performers and composers from around the world, has brought in new audiences as well. Lockhart reminisces about the Pops’ first Day of the Dead concert in fall 2024, when the audience in Symphony Hall was predominantly Spanish-speaking for the first time. “It really did bring in a cross section of Latin Americans who were just happy to see resonances of their own culture and that we were performing alongside community performers of Latino background,” says Lockhart. “It was outreach in the best way.”

BOSTON’S FOURTH OF JULY

The famed Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular, celebrating America’s independence, is one of the biggest nights of the year for the group. In past years, half a million music lovers have attended the free concert on the Esplanade, listening to a traditional performance of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” and seeing big-name guest stars. The evening ends with the Mugar Family Fireworks over the Charles River.

This year, two-time Grammy Award-winning singer LeAnn Rimes will headline the July Fourth performance alongside performances by Grammy Award-winning vocalist Leslie Odom Jr. of “Hamilton” fame and Boston native hip-hop trio Bell Biv DeVoe.

“That concert is one of the great civic events of the year,” says Lockhart. “It exists for all of Boston.”

Lockhart jokes that he’s in a dead-end job because there’s no new position to graduate to. But the truth is, he loves the work, and every day is different. Thirty years is not enough. Lockhart has renewed his contract at least through 2027. And who knows, we may find him jumping on a trampoline again.

“A conductor is somebody who can get a group of people to do something amazing collectively that none of us could do individually. You’re not creating music, you’re allowing music to be created,” says Lockhart. “It’s a big thrill.”