Mark your calendars: the Boston Pops Orchestra is returning to live, in-person performances at Symphony Hall for its 2021 holiday season.
Conductor Keith Lockhart joined Boston Public Radio on Monday to share what’s in store for the Boston Pops this December.
Due to the dark nature of the pandemic, Lockhart told hosts Jim Braude and Margery Eagan that community and holiday traditions are central themes of the 2021 Holiday Pops.
“[The holidays] are about interacting with our fellow humanity, and kind of figuring out that we have more in common than we might have thought during the rest of the year,” he said.
“I think this is a year people will look to tradition more than ever, just because we all are going, ‘Where are those things that we used to do?’ and ‘Where are those things that we recognize?’” Lockhart added. “We want to honor that.”
Last year, the Boston Pops streamed their holiday program online. For this season, Symphony Hall has reopened with COVID-19 protocols for both visitors and performers. The Tanglewood Festival Chorus, which has not sung together in-person since February 2020, will be wearing masks during their performance.
“We have taken every precaution that any of the large theatrical venues and the city of Boston have taken to ensure that people can feel comfortable being there,” Lockhart said. “Vaccine or testing mandates, masks while in [Symphony Hall], except when consuming food and beverage, which is a part of Holiday Pops — and there's an even more rigid protocol in place for us performers.”
During the wide-ranging interview, Lockhart also remembered the life of Stephen Sondheim, someone with whom he’s had "about a 40-year relationship."
“A couple of hours I spent sitting in his living room talking to him, probably 20 years ago, remain one of those the most vivid memories I ever have in meeting a single person,” Lockhart said. “It must be what it would have been like to sit down with da Vinci, or Beethoven, or Shakespeare. You really got the feeling: he was a rather modest and self-effacing person in person. But you got the feeling that you were really in the face of genius.”
Keith Lockhart is conductor for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and will be leading the Boston Holiday Pops this season, which starts Dec. 2 and runs through Christmas Eve.
