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Pops at the Palace
Babb prepares for season-ending concert
By Jeff Rapsis jrapsis@hippopress.com
If something seems familiar about this weekend’s Palace Festival Orchestra pops concert, there’s a reason. Conductor Robert C. Babb makes it a point to model his pops programs after those of legendary Boston Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler.
Fiedler, who led the Boston group for a half century, set the standard for what Babb and many other conductors aspire to in a “pops” concert — a little something for everyone.
“I like to do my pops concerts in the tradition of Fiedler,” said Babb, finishing up leading the first season of the Palace Theatre’s newly created symphony orchestra. “I like to give them some light classics, some good soloists, and some arrangements of pop music to send everyone away with a happy feeling.”
He added: “The only difference is that I don’t have a fire engine like Fiedler used to.”
The program for this weekend’s concert, set for Sunday, June 1, at 4 p.m., closely mirrors the proven Fiedler model. It opens with the lively “Poet and Peasant Overture” by Franz von Suppé, which is one of those fun 19th-century pieces that inspired generations of cartoon music in our own time.
The energetic Hungarian Dance No. 6 by Brahms follows, and then the lyric “Voices of Spring” waltz by Johann Strauss — a classic in its own right, but also famous to legions of Three Stooges fans as the music to which Curly pretends to be “Seniorita Cucaracha” in the legendary 1945 short “Microphonies.”
Babb says the highlight of this weekend’s program is “A Tribute to Five Decades of Popular Trumpet Solos,” a 25-minute arrangement that takes listeners on a tour of some of the iconic moments for trumpet from pop music of the mid-20th century. Soloist Jay Daly, a well-known local trumpet virtuoso, will conjure the spirit of Harry James, Herb Alpert and Bix Beiderbecke, among others.
Also on the bill is a Beatles medley, a rendition of Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever” march conducted by the winner of a fund-raising auction, and, as a planned encore, “Bugler’s Holiday” in the famous three-trumpet arrangement by Leroy Anderson.
“A pops concert has to have ebb and flow,” Babb said. “It’s got to have different kinds of music, and I try to create a concert with enough variety so it’s always interesting to the audience.”
The Palace Festival Orchestra will perform a “Pops at the Palace” concert on Sunday, June 1, at 4 p.m. Tickets cost $36 to $40, seniors $33 to $40, children $15 to $40. For more info, call the box office at 668-5588 or buy online at palacetheatre.org.
Jeff Rapsis is a working musician and a member of the board of directors of the Manchester Community Music School, and contributes program notes to the Palace Festival Orchestra and other groups.
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