Holiday Pops 2023 Digital Program
Lead Season Sponsor
Program
KEITH LOCKHART conducting
with the Metropolitan Chorale, Lisa Graham, music director
- Tuesday, 12/19, 7:30pm
- Thursday, 12/21, 3pm & 7:30pm
Hark, the Herald Angels Sing
Trad.—arr. Bass
Carol of the Drum
Davis—arr. Wright
Fantasia on Christmas Carols
Vaughan Williams
JOEL CLEMENS, ANDREW GARLAND, or DANA WHITESIDE, baritone
Tomorrow Is My Dancing Day
Trad.—arr. Hollenbeck
A Christmas Tale: Suite from The Nutcracker
Tchaikovsky
Film by Susan Dangel and Dick Bartlett | Artwork by Jan Brett
Mary’s Little Boy Child
Hairston—arr. Hollenbeck
Film by Susan Dangel and Dick Bartlett
The Good News Voyage
arr. Coleman/Elliott
Film by Susan Dangel and Dick Bartlett | Artwork by Ashley Bryan
- Go Tell It on the Mountain—
- Mary Had a Baby Boy—
- Rise, Shine, for Your Light Is Coming
INTERMISSION
Frosty All the Way!
arr. Sebesky
Tikkun Olam (Heal the World)
Richman
Sleigh Ride
Anderson
The Twelve Days of Christmas
arr. Chase
A Visit from St. Nicholas (’Twas the Night before Christmas)
Reisman
Text by Clement C. Moore | Artwork by Jan Brett
A Merry Little Sing-Along
arr. Reisman
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
- Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
- Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
- The Christmas Song
- Winter Wonderland
- Jingle Bells
Cell phone photo and video of these performances are allowed for personal use only, including posting on social media; we may ask you to limit taking photos or videos if it interferes with the performance or other attendees’ enjoyment of it. Please note that use of flash is prohibited.
The Boston Pops welcomes:
- 12/19 at 7:30pm: A+E Networks; Belmont High School Band Program; Harvard Club of Boston; Tillinger’s Concierge
- 12/21 at 3pm: Dedham Middle School; David Iagatta; Maura Reilly
- 12/21 at 7:30pm: Gregory T. Clark; Dragonfly Therapeutics; Robert J. Fleming, Sr.; Heidi K. Gardner; Kathleen Hogan-Matthes; Amy Penna; The Quin House; Venanzioro Fonte
Artists
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Keith Lockhart
Keith Lockhart is the second longest-tenured conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra since its founding in 1885. He took over as conductor in 1995, following John Williams’s thirteen-year tenure from 1980 to 1993; Mr. Williams succeeded the legendary Arthur Fiedler, who was at the helm of the orchestra for nearly fifty years. Keith Lockhart, who occupies the Julian and Eunice Cohen Boston Pops Conductor chair, has conducted more than 2,000 Boston Pops concerts and annual Boston Pops appearances at Tanglewood, as well as 45 national tours and five international tours to Japan and Korea. The annual Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular conducted by Mr. Lockhart draws a live audience of over half a million to the Charles River Esplanade and millions more who view it on television or live webcast. He has led eight albums on RCA Victor/BMG Classics; recent releases on Boston Pops Recordings include A Boston Pops Christmas–Live from Symphony Hall, The Dream Lives On: A Portrait of the Kennedy Brothers, and Lights, Camera… Music! Six Decades of John Williams. The list of nearly 300 guest artists with whom Keith Lockhart has collaborated represents performers from virtually every corner of the entertainment world. Having recently completed an eight-year tenure as principal conductor, he is now chief guest conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra in London; he is also artistic director of the Brevard Music Center summer institute and festival in North Carolina. Prior to his BBC appointment, he spent eleven years as music director of the Utah Symphony. He has appeared as a guest conductor with virtually every major symphonic ensemble in North America and many in Asia and Europe. Before coming to Boston, he was the associate conductor of both the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops orchestras, as well as music director of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra.
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Lisa Graham
Lisa Graham is music director of the Metropolitan Chorale, a position she has held since 2004. Dr. Graham has shaped the Chorale’s programming to include contemporary, American, and lesser-known works alongside the masterworks of the repertory. She has enhanced the reputation and reach of the Chorale through collaborations with acclaimed artists as well as established composers of our day.
Dr. Graham is the Evelyn Barry Director of Choral Programs and Senior Lecturer at Wellesley College, where she conducts the Wellesley College Choir, Chamber Singers, and Choral Scholars in addition to teaching academic courses in the music department. Under her direction, the Wellesley College Choirs have toured internationally in Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Portugal, South Korea, and the Baltics in addition to annual domestic tours. Both the Chamber Singers and the Choir are featured in the motion picture Mona Lisa Smile.
Familiar to Boston audiences, she has worked with the Handel and Haydn Society and the BSO, and she has toured with and served as cover conductor for the Boston Pops for eight seasons. In 2016, she prepared members of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus for Charles Dutoit's BSO performance of Holst’s The Planets.
Dr. Graham is a founding member, former president, and lifetime honorary member of the National Collegiate Choral Conductor’s Organization. She has served on the board of the Eastern Division American Choral Directors Association and is currently president of the Massachusetts chapter. Dr. Graham is the 2021 winner of the American Prize Dale Warland Award in Choral Conducting. Her masters and doctoral degrees were earned at the University of Southern California.
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Metropolitan Chorale
Founded in 1979, the Metropolitan Chorale is an auditioned chorus that is recognized as one of metropolitan Boston’s premier choral ensembles.
Since 2004, the Metropolitan Chorale has been under the direction of Dr. Lisa Graham who also serves as the Evelyn Barry Director of Choral Programs at Wellesley College. Concerts explore works by many of today’s leading American and British composers, as well as major choral masterworks, including Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Bach’s Mass in B minor, Vaughan Williams’ Sea Symphony, and Handel’s Israel in Egypt. Programs feature important artists of our day from bass-baritone Justin Hopkins and soprano Estelí Gomez, a lead artist with the Grammy Award-winning Roomful of Teeth, to Robin Young, host of NPR’s nationally syndicated program Here and Now. Commissions include works by Kirke Mechem and Boston-based composer Thomas Vignieri. One of the chorus's most ambitious undertakings was the commissioning of Sh’ma, by Andy Vores, a piece memorializing Holocaust victims and survivors. The piece received recognition by the Boston Globe as one of the best new works of 1996.
In addition to performances at All Saints Parish in Brookline, the Chorale can be heard throughout the Boston area at such prestigious venues as New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall and Sanders Theatre at Harvard University. In December 2013, the Metropolitan Chorale made its Boston Pops debut under the direction of conductor Keith Lockhart on a seven-concert tour of major cities on the East Coast.
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![Joel Clemens Headshot]()
Joel Clemens
Baritone Joel Clemens is quickly becoming known across the East Coast for his exemplary musicianship and dynamic characterization across a broad range of challenging repertoire. Clemens recently completed a residency with Chautauqua Institution, where he served as a teaching artist and gave touring performances of zarzuela-inspired children’s opera. He returns to Boston for the 2023-2024 season to be featured in West End Lyric’s inaugural “Joys of Music” concert and Boston Opera Collaborative’s “Whispers: Echoes from the Halls,” an immersive opera experience. A frequent performer with Boston Lyric Opera, he will appear in the chorus of The Anonymous Lover. He will also rejoin the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras Opera Chorus in Norma. In April, Clemens will be joining Boston Conservatory at Berklee as a guest artist to sing Demetrius in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Other notable operatic roles include Count Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Sid (Albert Herring), Publio (La clemenza di Tito), Valentin (Faust), and Guglielmo (Così fan tutte). Equally comfortable in 21st-century repertoire, Clemens will reprise the role of Manfred in Jake Heggie’s For a Look or a Touch with West End Lyric this spring. He recently premiered three roles in White Snake Projects’ second annual “Let’s Celebrate” series, which draws on diverse cultural traditions with shows that reflect their diverse community of artists. Clemens also created the role of Charles Ives in Robert Carl’s Harmony with libretto by acclaimed American writer Russel Banks, produced by Seagle Festival. Other notable contemporary roles include Hannah Younger (As One), Hawkins Fuller (Fellow Travelers), and Joseph De Rocher (Dead Man Walking). Joel Clemens is a proud alumnus of Seagle Festival’s Emerging Artist Program, which he attended for two summers. He is a recent graduate of Boston Conservatory’s prestigious Master of Music in Opera Performance program, where he was the recipient of the Miles A. Fish III Scholarship. He holds a bachelor of music from James Madison University, where he was awarded the Showalter Scholar Award.
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Andrew Garland
Baritone Andrew Garland has performed recitals at Carnegie Hall, New York Festival of Song, Ravinia Festival, Vocal Arts DC, Marilyn Horne Foundation, Bard Festival, Cleveland Art Song Festival, Camerata Pacifica, Andre-Turp Society Montreal, Voce at Pace, Huntsville Chamber Music Guild, Fanfare in Hammond (Louisiana), Cincinnati Matinee Musicale, Cincinnati Song Initiative, Tuesday Morning Music Club, American Pianists Awards, the Phillips Collection, college campuses around North America, and venues in Italy, Croatia, Greece, and Turkey. He has premiered works by Jake Heggie, William Bolcom, Stephen Paulus, Steven Mark Kohn, Eric Nathan, Edie Hill, and Gerald Cohen, and had works written for him by Lee Hoiby, Tom Cipullo, Thomas Pasatieri, and Gabriela Lena Frank.
He has performed in concert with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Boston Baroque, Handel and Haydn, Boston Youth Symphony, National Philharmonic, Albany Symphony, Washington Master Chorale at the Kennedy Center, National Chorale at Lincoln Center, Colorado Symphony, Nashville Symphony, Houston Symphony, UMS Ann Arbor, Colorado Bach Ensemble, Emmanuel Music, Boston Pro Musica, the UMass Amherst Bach Festival, and the Takács, Dover, Amernet, and Deadalus string quartets. He has performed leading opera roles at Seattle Opera, New York City Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Cincinnati Opera, Minnesota Opera, Arizona Opera, Hawai’i Opera Theatre, Opera Colorado, Boston Lyric, Dayton, Fort Worth Opera, the Bard Festival, and Opera Saratoga, but most importantly, he has sung the national anthem four times at Fenway Park, which is his favorite place to sing.
Garland is a member of the voice faculty at the University of Colorado, Boulder and is a mentor with Bel Canto Boot Camp.
Andrew (Andy) is a graduate of Silver Lake Regional High School and UMass Amherst and has ridden the Pan Mass Challenge 31 times.
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![Dana Whiteside Headshot]()
Dana Whiteside
Baritone Dana Whiteside has crafted a life in music that encompasses performance as a soloist and ensemble member and includes classical, contemporary, and musical theater. He has appeared as soloist in orchestral concerts including Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Sea Symphony at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Haydn’s The Creation with Portland Bach Experience, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and Ninth Symphony, the cantatas of J.S. Bach and his Saint John Passion, Saint Matthew Passion, and Mass in B minor, and the Boston premiere of John Harbison’s Supper at Emmaus. Roles in works for stage have included Time in the Boston premiere of Harbison’s Winter’s Tale with Boston Modern Orchestra Project; the Speaker in The Magic Flute with Boston Baroque; and, with Emmanuel Music, the singer in Kurt Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins and Count Carl Magnus in Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music. Highlights of his 2023-24 season include the role of Jesus in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with Cantata Singers, soloist in Credo by Margaret Bonds, Tancredi in Monteverdi’s Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda with A Far Cry, and soloist in the world premiere of I Will Tell You by Aaron Siegel based on texts by former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith at Merkin Hall in New York City.
Whiteside was educated at Holy Cross College, the Longy School of Music, New England Conservatory, and the Tanglewood Music Center and is an avid recitalist, having appeared with Musicians of the Old Post Road and the Florestan Recital Project as well as in programs at the French Library and University of Oregon. He enjoys affiliations with the Handel and Haydn Society, Cantata Singers, the Bach Project at Ashmont Hill Chamber Music, and Boston Baroque. He is also a member of the Grammy-nominated Skylark Vocal Ensemble and is a featured soloist on the group’s albums Winter’s Night, Seven Words from the Cross, It’s A Long Way, Sauntering Songs, and La Vie en Rose.
Dana Whiteside belongs to Beyond Artists, a coalition of artists whose members donate a portion of their concert fee to organizations they care about, and with his performances he supports Bay Cove Human Services, which provides mental health/addiction/recovery support, and the Women’s Lunch Place, which supports the dignity of women.
Program Notes
Boston Pops Major Corporate Sponsors, 2023-24 Season
The Boston Pops and Symphony Hall major corporate sponsorships reflect the increasing importance of alliance between business and the arts. The Boston Pops is honored to be associated with the following companies and gratefully acknowledges their partnership. For information regarding BSO, Boston Pops, and/or Tanglewood sponsorship opportunities, contact Joan Jolley, Director of Corporate Partnerships, at (617) 638-9279 or jjolley@bso.org.
Donors
