For over a century, the Boston Pops has upheld its status as a principal cultural institution in America, a musical ambassador abroad, and the most-recorded orchestra in the world. The three American-born Conductors, Arthur Fiedler (1930-1979), John Williams (1980-1995), and Keith Lockhart (1995-present), all maintain one universal belief: to consistently push the envelope of symphonic programming by translating popular music into an orchestral setting. The genres of jazz, musical theater, film, folk, blues, world, country, pop, and rock have all been performed by the Boston Pops, thanks to the genius of the orchestra’s composers and arrangers combined with the talent of the best orchestral musicians in the world. The list of guest artists who have performed with the orchestra is legendary, and includes icons such as Ella Fitzgerald, Elvis Presley, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Ray Charles, Gregory Hines, Sarah Vaughan, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Dave Brubeck, Sammy Davis, Jr., Loretta Lynn, Bonnie and John Raitt, James Taylor, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, k.d. lang, Harry Connick Jr., Alison Krauss and Union Station, Diana Krall, Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Buckwheat Zydeco, Arturo Sandoval, and Bono.
