Keith Lockhart

Long before he started taking piano lessons at the age of seven, Keith Lockhart had listened to the jazz and classical records that his father played at home, and by the time he became the twentieth conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra in February 1995, the 35-year-old Poughkeepsie, New York native had been involved in all sorts of music.

Born in November 7, 1959, he was trained mostly in classical but during his time at the South Carolina liberal arts school Furman University (from which he graduated with degrees in piano performance and German in 1981), he worked on his chops in pop music, playing electric piano and synthesizer and singing background in a top-40 cover band at proms and various other events. The group also made a few bucks by regularly backing an Elvis impersonator, which Lockhart enjoyed, he says, “because I got to do a lot of Jerry Lee Lewis sort of piano.”

When it came to playing serious music, he eventually realized that “I was a good pianist, as opposed to a great pianist, but I really wanted to perform.” One of his professors suggested that, due to his analytical approach as a musician, he might want to consider conducting, and the idea took hold. After earning a master’s in orchestral conducting from Carnegie Mellon University in 1983, Lockhart conducted the Pittsburgh Civic Orchestra, became assistant conductor of the Akron Symphony Orchestra and, in 1990, was the associate conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops orchestras. In 1998, three years after moving to Boston to fill the shoes of John Williams at the Pops, he became music director of the Utah Symphony Orchestra, but he ended that relationship in 2009 to concentrate on his more prominent role in New England. He defines that role as “recreative artistry,” meaning that he takes material that was written by other people, then makes it work for new people.

Once settled in Boston, Lockhart took Arthur Fiedler’s variety-show formula – light classical at the start of a program, a concerto soloist after the first intermission, and a popular-current music mix after the second intermission – and made some changes by adding a new breed of guest artists. Among the luminaries he’s had perform with the orchestra are Amanda Palmer, Elvis Costello, James Taylor, Aerosmith, Béla Fleck, Steve Martin and Mariah Carey. He’s led the Pops on 45 national tours and five international tours over the decades, but perhaps the most important thing about Lockhart’s tenure in Boston for many New Englanders is that the once diehard Mets fan has become a Red Sox fan.

(by Ed Symkus)