Jon Batiste
Lead Season Sponsor
Tuesday, May 12, 2026, 7:30pm
Wednesday, May 13, 7:30pm
Thursday, May 14, 7:30pm
Corporate support for Thursday evening's concert is generously provided by BSO Business Partner Bayberry Financial Services.
BOSTON POPS
KEITH LOCKHART conducting
Presenting Jon Batiste
Selections to be announced from the stage
When can I take photos and videos? You are welcome (and encouraged!) to take photos and videos before and after the concert, and at intermission. Symphony Hall makes for a beautiful backdrop! Photos, videos, and audio recordings are strictly prohibited during the performance. At that time, be a great neighbor to your fellow concertgoers, put your phone or camera away, and enjoy the moment!
Guests are expected to drink responsibly. Intoxication will not be tolerated. Intervention with an impaired guest will be handled in a prompt and safe manner, which may include ejection from the premises.
The Boston Pops welcomes:
May 12: Josh Bevers; Leo Burns; Harvard Outings & Innings
May 13: Harvard Outings & Innings; KSP Financial; Linda Tatten; UNH Alumni
May 14: Bristol County Savings Bank; Mrs. Sharon A. Diamond; Ronnie Edwards; Harvard Club of Boston; Harvard Outings & Innings; Mr. Nate Kessier; Noah Mayville; MIT Graduate Student Council
Steve Colby, Sound Designer | Pamela Smith, Lighting Designer
The Boston Pops Orchestra may be heard on Boston Pops Recordings, RCA Victor, Sony Classical, and Philips Records.
Steinway & Sons Pianos, selected exclusively for Symphony Hall.
Special thanks to Fidelity Investments, Lead Season Sponsor, and Fairmont Copley Plaza, Official Hotel of the Boston Pops.
New arrangements and works for the Boston Pops are generously supported by the Cecile Higginson Murphy Pops Programming Fund.
Broadcasts of the Boston Pops are heard on 99.5 WCRB.
Programs and artists subject to change.
The BSO’s 2025-26 season is supported in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Inc.
Board of Trustees | Board of Advisors | Staff and Administration
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Boston Pops
Led by conductor Keith Lockhart, the Boston Pops, known affectionately as “America’s Orchestra,” performs an exciting and eclectic mix of orchestral arrangements from a wide range of traditions including Broadway and the great American songbook, film music, classical, jazz, pop, country, folk, and, of course, holiday classics. The Pops was created in 1885 as the “light classical” summer season venture of the Boston Symphony. The Boston Pops Orchestra reached its current iconic status during the 50-year tenure of the legendary Arthur Fiedler, who was succeeded in 1980 by the equally renowned film composer John Williams. Keith Lockhart took the helm in 1995. It was Fiedler who started the tradition of Pops performances on the Charles River Esplanade, including the annual Fourth of July celebration, brought the Pops to television with Evening at Pops (1970-2004), and initiated Holiday Pops, which marked its 50th anniversary in 2023. Fiedler welcomed to our stages dynamic, world-class guest artists including Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Julia Child, and Bob Hope. That tradition continues today with Keith Lockhart working with such stars as Brian Stokes Mitchell, The B-52s, Chaka Khan, Nick Jonas, and Rhiannon Giddens. With the Pops, Keith has made 81 television shows, led 45 national and 5 overseas tours, led the Pops at several high-profile sporting events including the Super Bowl, and recorded fourteen albums. Through it all the orchestra has remained of the most recorded, familiar, and beloved ensembles in the world today.
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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 2,100 Boston Pops concerts and annual Boston Pops appearances at Tanglewood, as well as 45 national tours and 5 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. For more on Keith Lockhart, visit www.bso.org/keith-lockhart or bostonpops.org.
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Jon Batiste
Jon Batiste is a seven-time Grammy, Academy, and Emmy Award–winning singer, songwriter, composer, and pianist, renowned for his genre-defying approach to music and his commitment to inclusivity and cultural exploration.
Batiste recently debuted his ninth studio album, BIG MONEY, a project rooted in American traditions spanning gospel, soul, blues, folk, and rock & roll. Featuring collaborations with No I.D., Randy Newman, and Andra Day, the album is nominated for three 2026 Grammy Awards including Best Americana Album, Best American Roots Song, and Best American Roots Performance. Batiste supported the project with a national headlining tour that visited over 30 venues across the country, selling out nearly every market.
BIG MONEY followed 2024’s Beethoven Blues (Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 1). Marking the first installment in his new solo piano series, the project showcases his interpolations of some of Beethoven’s most iconic works, reimagined through an expansive lens. The album topped Billboard’s Classical Albums chart for nine weeks and delivered Batiste’s biggest sales week to date.
In 2023, he released World Music Radio, a globetrotting album of originals that drew inspiration from his mission to create community and expand culture with the power of music. Featuring collaborators including Jon Bellion, Lana Del Rey, Lil’ Wayne and more, the project received five Grammy nominations, including Album of the Year.
That same year, he was the subject of Matthew Heineman’s moving Netflix documentary American Symphony, released in partnership with Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground. The film chronicles Batiste’s professional triumphs in 2022, marked by nine Grammy nominations and five wins for his 2021 album We Are, while he simultaneously confronts his wife’s cancer recurrence. He also co-wrote the film’s original song “It Never Went Away,” which earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song and a Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media.
In 2020, he received two Grammy nods for the albums: CHRONOLOGY OF A DREAM: LIVE AT THE VILLAGE VANGUARD and MEDITATIONS (with Cory Wong).
Batiste’s work also extends to film composition, most recently contributing the score for Jason Reitman’s 2024 film Saturday Night, which depicts the chaotic 90 minutes leading up to the first broadcast of Saturday Night Live in 1975. He also composed and performed music for the Disney/Pixar film Soul, earning an Academy Award for Best Original Score alongside fellow composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Soul also earned Batiste a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, an NAACP Image Award, and a Critics’ Choice Award.
From 2015 until 2022, Batiste served as the bandleader and musical director of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS.
Boston Pops Major Corporate Sponsors, 2025-26 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.