Arthur Fiedler Night at the Boston Pops
Annual tribute to legendary conductor tonight at Symphony Hall
Arthur Fiedler (Hon.’51), the legendary conductor of the Boston Pops for almost 50 years, will be honored at tonight’s annual Arthur Fiedler Night at Symphony Hall. Photo by BU Photography
Tonight, the Boston Pops will honor legendary maestro Arthur Fiedler (Hon.’51), who led the Pops from 1930 until his death in 1979, at the annual Arthur Fiedler Night at Symphony Hall. Led by current Pops conductor Keith Lockhart (Hon.’04), the concert will feature favorites from the Fiedler era, with a tribute to the professional collaboration between Fiedler and composer and arranger Leroy Anderson (“Fiddle Faddle,” “Sleigh Ride,” “The Typewriter”), who first came to Fiedler’s attention as a Harvard student. Anderson’s music will be accompanied by a puppet performance by students in the University of Connecticut’s Puppet Arts Program, in a special event called “Puppets Take the Pops.”
During his nearly 50 years as Pops conductor, Fiedler transformed the orchestra into a world-famous ensemble, thanks largely to dozens of popular recordings and frequent television appearances, including the long-running PBS series Evening at Pops and the annual 4th of July Pops concerts on the Esplanade.
His name has long been familiar to the Boston University community. A reading room at Mugar Memorial Library bears his name and his personal archives, including hand-annotated scores and photographs, are housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center.
Attending tonight’s concert will be Fiedler’s son, Peter Fiedler (COM’77), BU vice president for administrative services, and his wife and three children.
“This is a special night each year for me and my family,” says Peter Fiedler. “Keith Lockhart and the orchestra always put together a very special tribute to my father, which often includes some of his favorite pieces as well as a couple of wonderful video clips and slideshows.”
Fiedler says that this year’s tribute is especially exciting because of the “Puppets Take the Pops” collaboration. “They have built a replica puppet of my father which I have seen clips of, and it’s quite remarkable,” he says. “The puppet will be narrating Peter and the Wolf with the orchestra.” Fiedler, known for a spot-on impression of his late father, was asked to record his voice so the linguistics expert working with the UConn team “could have the puppeteer sound as much like my father as possible. I can’t wait to see it and I’m sure my father would be very impressed as well.”
Arthur Fiedler Night at the Boston Pops is tonight, Tuesday, May 24, at 8 p.m. at Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Ave. Tickets ($24 to $99, depending on location) are available online or at the Symphony Hall box office, 201 Massachusetts Ave. Take any MBTA Green Line trolley to Copley and switch to a #39 bus to Symphony Hall or take an E trolley to Symphony.
Connor Lenahan can be reached at lenahan@bu.edu.
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