Barbara Cook Kicks Off Boston Pops Season May 6

By Andrew Gans
06 May 2009

Barbara Cook
Barbara Cook

Tony Award winner Barbara Cook helps conductor Keith Lockhart kick off the 2009 Boston Pops season May 6 at Symphony Hall in Massachusetts.

The 8 PM concert will feature the Broadway and concert veteran performing her signature tunes from the Broadway stage and the American songbook as well as selections from her recent CD, "Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder."

The opening-night program launches Lockhart's 15th season and the Boston Pops' 124th season. The current season, which runs through June 21 (at Symphony Hall), will officially conclude July 4 with the Pops' concert on the Charles River Esplanade.

Barbara Cook has starred on Broadway in Flahooley, Candide, The Gay Life, The Music Man and She Loves Me. She received a Best Featured Actress in a Musical Tony Award for her performance in The Music Man, and her one-woman show, Mostly Sondheim, was nominated for a Tony in the Best Special Theatrical Event category. Cook was most recently on the New York stage in Barbara Cook's Broadway. Both Mostly Sondheim and Barbara Cook's Broadway were recorded for DRG. Cook made her solo debut at the Metropolitan Opera, which was also released on DRG Records. Her newest CD, also on DRG, is titled "Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder."

Other highlights of the Boston Pops season include:

  • Movin' Out's Michael Cavanaugh will sing the tunes of Billy Joel May 8-9; Steven Reineke, the newly appointed conductor of the New York Pops, will makes his Boston Pops debut for these two evenings.

  • Virtuoso jazz guitarist and singer John Pizzarelli and avant-garde cellist Maya Beiser will join the Pops May 12-13.

  • The music heard in the films of director Stanley Donen ("Singin' in the Rain," "Funny Face" and "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers") will be part of "Film Night" May 27-28. John Williams will lead the orchestra, and the evenings will also feature an appearance by Donen.

  • Linda Eder will join Keith Lockhart and the Pops June 9 and 10 for two evenings devoted to the songs made famous by the late Judy Garland. Expect to hear Eder's renditions of "Me and My Shadow," "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart" and "Over the Rainbow."

  • The songs of Richard Rodgers will be explored June 16-18 in A Richard Rodgers Celebration. Lockhart and the Pops will be joined by vocal fellows from the Tanglewood Music Center.

  • Four-time Grammy nominee Michael Feinstein will offer The Sinatra Project June 19-20. Erich Kunzel will lead the orchestra, and the program will also include a performance of Tchaikovsky's "Rococo Variations" by Young Concert Artists' 2008 first prize winner, cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan.

    The Pops play Boston's Symphony Hall. For more information call (617) 266-1492 or visit.