Wednesday, March 29, 2000
Pops season celebrates Kunzel's 35 years
BY JANELLE GELFAND
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Erich Kunzel
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“A lot happened very quickly for me, and it all happened because of Dave Brubeck,” says Cincinnati Pops conductor Erich Kunzel.
The Cincinnati Pops' 2000-2001 season will be a year-long celebration of Mr. Kunzel's 35 years with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Brubeck, whose name is synonymous with West Coast “cool jazz,” was Mr. Kunzel's first guest artist in 1965.
Expect a few rounds of “Happy Birthday” when Mr. Brubeck and the Dave Brubeck Quartet kick off the Pops season (Sept. 8-10). They'll be celebrating Mr. Brubeck's 80th, as well as Mr. Kunzel's 65th.
Be prepared for a lot of reminiscing, too. Their collaboration in Mr. Brubeck's Light in the Wilderness led to Mr. Kunzel's first recording for Decca Gold. The piece was taken on the CSO's European tour in 1969.
Another high point of the Pops season will be the Jan. 14 concert, “The Golden Age of Swing” with The Jazz Ambassadors of the United States Army Field Band. The show will be taken to Carnegie Hall (Jan. 23, 2001). The cast will return in July, when the Pops puts on “Fourth of July from the Heartland,” a live PBS broadcast from Riverbend.
As always, theme nights will shape the season. The orchestra and audience will don costumes for “The Return of Chiller” (Oct. 20-22), with music to be recorded by Telarc. For a Celtic night (March 9-11), Mr. Kunzel says the orchestra will wear green, “with (maybe) green beer in the lobby.”
And with all eyes on the Cincinnati Reds, the Pops' sports night is timely (April 1 and 8). Reds Hall-of-Famer Johnny Bench will narrate Casey at the Bat, and former Bengal and Grammy-winning songwriter Mike Reid will visit with tunes he has written for Bonnie Raitt, Ronnie Milsap and others.
Other shows will include a tribute to the silent film work of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton (Nov. 12) and a holiday show with the King's Singers (Dec. 8-10). The Pops will hail the centennial of trumpet virtuoso Louis Armstrong on April 29.
Film and Broadway star Debbie Reynolds will wrap up the season, with her first visit to the Pops, June 1-3.
Among the three albums to be recorded, the Pops will record a long-overdue Beatles disc.
“It's hard to do their music because the words are so important,” Mr. Kunzel says. “It has to be done with class.”
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