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Pops Goes The DSO

Cer THE PP/

"The best Pizza
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"Tops on my list...

Arthur Fiedler's protege will relive
old times at Orchestra Hall.

SUZANNE CHESSLER

Special to the Jewish News

L

John Tanasychuk, Detroit Free Press, January 8th, 1999

Pops. He'd dress in any costume. He'd
have enormous 100-foot flags, and he'd
have fireworks going off."
Fiedler, who was Jewish, guest-con-
ducted in Israel but never brought the
Boston Pops there. In 1965, the
Arthur Fiedler Music Library was
established in Tel Aviv by Histadrut,
Israel's national labor federation.

egendary conductor Arthur
Fiedler, who built an audi-
ence-friendly approach to
concerts during his 50 years
leading the Boston Pops, brought his
showmanship to Michigan as guest
maestro of the Detroit Symphony
Orchestra.
Soon, one of his proteges will revis-
it those times with a tribute concert.
Erich Kunzel, a frequent guest con-
ductor at Orchestra Hall and
Meadow Brook as well as with the
Boston Pops, will be joined by pianist
Michael Chertock for "Fiedler's
Favorites," a DSO Pops Series con-
cert to be performed Feb. 8-11.
"I will be playing the Concerto for
Piano and Orchestra by Leroy
Anderson, who was the chief
arranger for the Boston Pops for
many years," says Chertock. The
great-grandson of a Russian Jewish
immigrant, Chertock spent two years
as assistant organist at the Hebrew
Union College in Cincinnati.
Michael Chertock: "[Arthur Fiedler]
"Anderson also composed for the
did not found the pops orchestra, but
orchestra from time to time. The
he made it a household word."
concerto only had been played a cou-
ple of times in the early 1950s before
Anderson withdrew it, and nobody is
"Erich has taken the showmanship
sure why. I've asked his kids about it, and
and
spark and the kind of enthusiasm
they're not sure," says Chertock.
that
Fiedler brought to pops and
"After Anderson died, his widow and
brought
it to orchestras all around the
children wanted to see the piece
world,"
Chertock
says. "Both conduc-
brought back to life. It's a very patriotic-
tors
sold
tremendous
quantities of
sounding piece at times, and Erich
records, and both also seemed to make
Kunzel always has been a big champion
a specialty of patriotic music."
of it.
Chertock, who has performed with
Also on the program is another
Kunzel
about 75 times with eight dif-
Anderson piece, Bugler's Holiday, as
ferent
orchestras,
has another connec-
well as von Suppe's overture to The
tion
to
the
Boston
Pops. Chertock, in
Light Cavalry, selections from
his
30s,
was
introduced
to his wife,
Offenbach's Gaite Parisienne, Lloyd
Brook,
by
the
Boston
Pops'
current
Webber's "King Herod's Song" from
conductor,
Keith
Lockhart,
a
personal
and
more.
Jesus Christ Superstar,
friend of the pianist.
"Arthur Fiedler (1894-1979) started as
a violist in the Boston Symphony," says
"Fiedler's Favorites" will be per-
Chertock, who has performed with the
formed at Orchestra Hall 10:45
DSO at Meadow Brook "He did not
a.m. and 8 p.m. Thursday, 8:30
found the pops orchestra, but he made it
p.m. Friday and Saturday and 3
a household word. He commissioned a
p.m. Sunday, Feb. 8-11. $18-
tremendous amount of music for it.
$70. (313) 576-5111.
"There was nothing Fiedler would
not do to bring attention to the Boston

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