Originally I was supposed to talk to Boston Pops Conductor Keith Lockhart (right) at the start of the season, but scheduling became a problem, and I suggested that it made more sense to talk about EdgeFest anyway. The annual rock invasion of Symphony Hall started in '05 as a way to hip up a tradition-bound Pops schedule that's full of
warhorses beloved favorites from the Arthur Fiedler era and MOR pop stars like Natalie Cole. The goal: Get more young people to visit Symphony Hall. The idea has also paid off with interesting music and bonuses like a performance on "Late Show With David Letterman" backing My Morning Jacket.
This year's EdgeFest features Natalie Merchant on May 27-28 and "a theatrical punk extravaganza" from Boston's own Amanda Palmer (below) on June 19-20, playing her solo work as well as pieces from a forthcoming Dresden Dolls album. I spoke to Lockhart this morning by phone; an edited transcript follows...
Question: James Levine's more adventurous programming has started some grumbling among more traditional patrons, with talk of people turning back tickets and things like that. Has EdgeFest had any of that kind of reaction - and do you wish it had more?
Lockhart: (Laughs) The Pops is really a more a la carte situation, it's not like the (BSO) where a lot of people are buying subscriptions to the whole season, so we haven't had a lot of backlash because it's a pick-and-choose situation.
Question: Obviously EdgeFest is a bit of marketing to get young people into the Hall. The trick is to get them to come back at some point when it's not My Morning Jacket. Do you see any signs that it's working?
Lockhart: It's a hard thing to quantify, to get statistics on. We're not gonna tag them. It's not like the wolf (?) project where we tag them and see where they migrate. I think it's a long-term strategy. What you're dealing with is thinking for the future. Each successive audience that comes in has to have an exposure to the Boston Pops at some time, and how that plays out is next year, with them saying, "Gee I'll try something that's less familiar to me," or it plays out 10 years from now when they have a family and they're saying, "Gee what kind of quality holiday thing are we going to do?" and "I remember what a cool time I had at the Boston Pops." I think it's about familiarity and it's a long-term-built structure rather than, "Gee, now I know they'll come back to hear Leroy Anderson's 'Fiddle Faddle.' "
Question: Is there anything in the house, in the orchestra - any unintended byproduct of Edgefest? Have the musicians reacted in some way?
Lockhart: I think for the musicians, especially those of our musicians who were not especially Guster or My Morning Jacket fans, I think it's an appreciation that there is a whole different audience out there who's interested in what we're doing. And the other thing we try to do, and I think this gives it a lot of legitimacy in terms of how the musicians feel about playing, it's not just Guster or My Morning Jacket or Amanda Palmer playing with the Boston Pops, it's also us playing, as the opening act basically...and we're going to play incredible music written for the orchestra. This is a great chance to reach people who are maybe curious but haven't had the exposure. (With Palmer) we're playing a good part of Gustav Holst's "The Planets" ... with footage from NASA outlining the planets in question. And we think people who come to hear Amanda Palmer are going to go away going, "Wow, that's really amazing, I've never heard something like that before. That's the thing, to get people who have probably never heard a live orchestra before to hear one of America's best live orchestras playing something that really knocks their socks off.
Question: Amanda Palmer, in particular, I think only My Morning Jacket is as truly edgy as her...
Lockhart: I think this is the furthest over the edge we've gone. (Laughs)
Question: Yeah! So, working with her - what's interesting about that to you musically, and what's challenging about it?
Lockhart: Well, I'll tell you what's challenging after we've actually worked with her. But what's interesting is, when this was first floated by some of our idea people, I said, really? Because it was hard for me to imagine. I was vaguely familiar with the Dresden Dolls' work (above), and I'm thinking "Pops Goes Goth" was not a combination I ever saw happening. But as I listened to her solo stuff, it's really, really interesting, very lyric-driven, very honest, and very original, and that's what we're looking for. We're not looking for people to fill some sort of genre. We're looking for artists with something to say. In a way the disparity in people's minds of Amanda Palmer vs. the Boston Pops is going to produce some interesting results.
Question: What is the process, what is the rehearsal schedule, especially for an artist who's so far from the Pops norm?
Lockhart: Well, our arrangers have already been working with her, getting the sound right, getting the idea of what they want to do, because somebody has to translate this in orchestral terms. There's not a bunch of charts already written for Amanda Palmer with the Boston Pops. I will meet with Amanda early on in the week she's appearing with us ... and the actual process with the orchestra is we meet the day of the (concert) and put it all together. ... I have a couple of orchestrators whom I trust very much to translate that sound, to smooth out the places were translation is difficult, but I don't anticipate any problems like that, I think this music will fit rather well on the orchestra.
Question: It's interesting that we have enough of a music community here to draw from. I thought if Mark Sandman was still alive he'd be interesting in this situation. Are there any other local acts you've considered for EdgeFest?
Lockhart: When we started it was with Guster, which was a local band then. They were Tufts kids... Amanda was a good place to start bcause there's really a national cult following for that group though they're still based here. ... I was thinking the Dropkick Murphys might be kinda interesting. They may be a bit loud for the Boston Pops...(Laughs)
Question: They do have a strong traditional element.
Lockhart: There's a Celtic element, and this is certainly a Celtic town, and with their connection to the Red Sox and all that, they're kind of local heroes.
Question: Natalie Merchant, though, would fit just fine in the regular schedule, wouldn't she?
Lockhart: It is certainly a lsss radical fit and appeals to a little bit more mainstream audience. Obviously not an Arthur Fiedler sort of audience, but Natalie Merchant's audience with (her former band) 10,000 Maniacs is now people in their 30s, certainly. It's sort of a no-brainer, she wants to work with us and she's one of the more interesting singer songwriters working right now. It's an easy fit...
Question: Has there been anybody you've approached and, not because of scheduling or those kinds of logistics, but they just said, "Mmmmm, maybe not?"
Lockhart: It's so difficult, because we have a very limited season. ... We say, Can you do this in May or June, and the bands are recording or they're out on tour. There's a couple of bands who I really like the sound of, who'd be really interesting - Death Cab For Cutie is one of those - who've expressed interest and it just hasn't fit. There's a couple of other ones we thought we'd be able to grab, no problem, who said, "We've already appeared with an orchestra once and we're not really planning to do that again in the near future" - Belle & Sebastian is one - but we'll keep banging on their door.
Question: With all the listening you do for upcoming programs, when and how do you listen to music to find these acts? And what's on your playlist right now?
Lockhart: I have a wonderful staff and one in particular, our associate director of programming Margo Saulnier, she is the youngest of us on the Pops staff, and it is her job to basically talent scout for these things. She knows more what's on the current alternative scene and she listens to more things, and we send her to concerts, to clubs, and she comes back and says, "This would be really interesting, this not so much," and she lays stuff on me, I get a bunch of CDs, and I say, "I can see your point here, abut this one I really can't see happening." ... One of the things that came up is we're presenting Josh Ritter (a non-Pops show with Pops musicians on June 27) , and that came out of Margo saying this would be a great collaboration.
Question: Do you have an iPod and jog, or do you listen to CDs in the car? When do you have time to listen to stuff that's not coming up next week? Or is that never during the season?
Lockhart: It's not very often during the season. It happens more often after the 4th of July. I do load some of the stuff into my iPod, but once that happens I hardly ever get to listen to it... It'll be July or August before I go to Margo and say, "OK, what should I be listening to now?"#
I'm not a Pops fan, and I have little interest in their format, but I'm intrigued by the idea of "adventurous" programming you put forward here. Are Amanda Palmer and My Morning Jacket really "edgy"? I mean at this late date can rock music ever be "edgy" at all? Both the acts you mention seem to me essentially nostalgic - the Dresden Dolls are a reworking of mid-70s Weimar, and MMJ is rockabilly pastiche. Of course the Pops have always traded in nostalgia - my point is that they still are by programming Amanda Palmer and MMJ. As for attracting "young people" - you actually mean boomers, don't you, i.e., middle-aged people who still listen to Elvis Costello. There's nothing wrong with an effort to make money off that audience - my questions revolve around how you're framing these efforts. I get the impression that you imagine that you yourself are a young person, or that you like to imagine that you identify with them. But of course you're not a young person (and neither am I). True, the tubby yuppies with enough money to afford Pops tickets are "young people" compared to the blue-hairs who dominate Symphony Hall; still, it would perhaps be more accurate to describe "Edgefest" as "Middle-Aged Spreadfest."
Posted by: Thomas Garvey | May 20, 2008 at 09:33 AM