Conductor Steven Reineke brings energy, easygoing style to NSO Pops

“The gist of pops concerts has changed so radically,” said Tim Page, a professor of journalism and music at the University of Southern California and former music critic at The Washington Post. “Today, pops tends to be more often like third-rate rock-and-rollers doing their stuff with a pops orchestra. At least it gives musicians jobs, but is having an orchestra play ‘I Love You Just the Way You Are’ serving the original idea of what an orchestra was invented for?”

In recession-stricken times, the purpose of pops has become clear: to find and grow an audience. In the past year, esteemed classical orchestras have added more pops concerts. The Dallas Symphony introduced an all-pops format to its summer concert series in 2010. Reineke conducted both the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Cleveland Orchestra this summer, which added pops concerts to their schedules even though both cities have separate, thriving pops orchestras.

Personal Post

“Major orchestras are seeing that pops is a moneymaker,” Reineke said. “Everyone generally agrees that pops doesn’t develop an audience for the classical concerts, but it’s great community outreach that brings in revenue.”

Finding a loyal pops audience has become increasingly difficult, though. With greater choices in entertainment, Lockhart said, the pops audience is growing but it’s also becoming increasingly segmented, which tends to make attendance unreliable.

“Audiences want hyper-specific concerts,” Lockhart said. “There’s been a separation of the audience into niche. I’m not sure what the societal reason behind this is, but we’re responding to the market needs of a post-Web audience. People don’t sit down to watch their favorite television show at 8 p.m. anymore.”

Sarah Hicks, the principal pops conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, made a similar point. “There’s a lot of naval-gazing right now,” she said. “The classical genre isn’t everyone’s musical language, so working with a salsa or jazz artist touches different parts of community. But then we have to ask, ‘How do we foster these diverse audiences?’ ”

Large cities have the edge when it comes to promoting wide varieties of concerts to different audiences. And Washington, being a transient city with so many musical tastes, might be the perfect place for Reineke to experiment with a diverse pops repertoire.

“When we work with groups like Ozomatli or Pink Martini, it brings their fans, many of which have never seen an orchestra perform. They’ll come back,” Reineke said with certainty. “We have the great Kennedy Center here. As the nation’s orchestra, we have the responsibility not just to do one thing. We have to have variety, but also have to stay true to our core audience.”

Reineke is not willing to forgo jazz and musicals, the standards that endeared the pops genre to many audiences. “I never want to lose where we came from,” Reineke said. “I love the songbook. I live and die by that music, but I want it to be fresh and new.”

Reineke’s first NSO pops season embraces the standards, beginning with “The Music of Rodgers & Hammerstein,” starring Broadway’s young Kelli O’Hara and tenor Aaron Lazar. The season also includes a tribute to Nat “King” Cole, and comedian Wayne Brady will solo in “Wayne Brady Sings the Sammys,” a tribute to Sammy Davis Jr. and Sam Cooke. The Canadian Tenors and the popular swing band Big Bad Voodoo Daddy will also perform with the NSO Pops.

The season might not yield anything as wild as Ozomatli’s Kennedy Center conga line, but Reineke hopes to push boundaries throughout his tenure.

“I love that we can forever evolve while also retaining the value in the past,” he said. “We’ll still continue to do Tchaikovsky and Dvorak, but we can do Lady Gaga, too. The Great American Songbook is a big, big place. There’s room for so much more.”

“Disney in Concert: Magic Music From the Movies”

Steven Reineke conducts the NSO Pops, 8:30 p.m. Aug. 4 at Wolf Trap, featuring vocalists Candice Nicole, Whitney Kaufman, Aaron Phillips and Andrew Johnson.