The Minneapolis Pops Orchestra this year will celebrate its 60th year performing free outdoor summer concerts. The first will be Saturday, June 27, at 7:30 p.m. See full schedule. Music director Jere Lantz, who is also a Musicians Union member, is internationally renowned.

The Minneapolis Pops is unique in many ways, like a summer flower that blooms only for a few weeks. “We get together only for a few weeks during June and July,” said Cynthia Stokes, who is president of the Pops’ board of directors and the orchestra’s first flute player.

The first Pops performance was in 1950. According to a history written for the orchestra’s 60th year, “the Pops was formed in a unique partnership between the [Minneapolis] Park Board, orchestra visionaries, and the Musician’s Union to express the mission of the orchestra: to offer symphonic-quality music by professional musicians to the community free of charge.”

“I love the fact that the audiences really love the concerts,” Stokes said. “It’s a lot of fun.”

Musically, she added, playing in the Pops Orchestra is a challenge. The 45 members of the orchestra rehearse only once each week for three hours— Saturday morning — then play one concert Saturday evening and a completely different concert Sunday evening.

The musicians are up to the task. “They’re all top-notch professionals,” Stokes said. “It’s good to play with good musicians.”

Stokes performed 36 years with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and also taught flute at St. Olaf College. She has been a longtime member of Twin Cities Musicians Union Local 30-73. In 1981, she joined the Minneapolis Pops Orchestra.

Playing music outdoors brings unique challenges. “The mosquitoes are not too much fun,” Stokes noted. At Lake Harriet Bandshell, enclosed on three sides, “the heat is sometimes an issue” she reported. In addition, musicians also contend with pigeons and swallows who swoop in and out of the rafters at the Lake Harriet Bandshell (sometimes unloading their droppings on the musicians below).

Among Stokes’ other duties, she also is the contractor for the Minneapolis Pops — the person who hires the members of the 45-musician orchestra. Members are drawn from the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Minnesota Opera, other organizations, and freelancers. “Sixty years of hiring union players,” Stokes noted.

Highlights of the season
The Minneapolis Pops will perform 13 concerts this summer, 10 at Lake Harriet, two at Nicollet Island, one at Elliot Park (see schedule, below).

The first Lake Harriet concert, June 27, will preview the concerts to follow there. For the final Lake Harriet concert, July 26, the audience will vote (by applause) which pieces they want the orchestra to play. “Then we pull out that piece of music and play it,” Stokes said.

The Minneapolis Pops Orchestra, compared to a more traditional symphony orchestra, exploits the opportunity to be more experimental and informal. “The atmosphere promotes that,” Stokes explained. “People are eating popcorn and ice cream. And the kids are running around.”

Each program might include selections from Broadway show tunes to opera to a single movement from a symphony.

“We love having the kids,” Stokes emphasized. Each performance features a march for the kids, who parade around the seating area to the music of the orchestra.

Stokes’ own interest in music began as a child “through the public school music program in Rochester, New York,” where she grew up, she related. “I used a flute borrowed from the school. I had group lessons for 50 cents an hour. That was the beginning.”

Stokes went on to major in music at Radcliffe College in Boston and to earn a masters degree in music at the New England Conservatory.

Although Stokes, 75, retired from the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and St. Olaf several years ago, she continues to perform with the Minneapolis Pops. Many of her fellow Pops musicians, she noted, have performed 20 years or more with the Pops.

“The audience is so eager to hear the music,” Stokes said. “It’s very rewarding.”

Funding for the Minneapolis Pops Orchestra’s free concerts comes, in part from the Musicians Performance Fund, administered by the Musicians Union. The group also welcomes donations to support their events.

Minneapolis Pops Orchestra 2009 Season

“Pops Preview Potpourri,” June 27, Lake Harriet, 7:30 p.m.
“60 or So,” June 28, Lake Harriet, 5:30 p.m.
“America, America,” July 4, Lake Harriet, 7:30 p.m.
“A Night at the Opera,” July 5, Lake Harriet, 5:30 p.m.
“America, America,” July 9, Nicollet Island Pavilion, 10:30 a.m.
“H.M.S. Pinafore,” July 11, Lake Harriet, 7:30 p.m.
“H.M.S. Pinafore,” July 12, Lake Harriet, 5:30 p.m.
“Kids Play,” July 18, Lake Harriet, 7:30 p.m.
“Never Made 60,” July 19, Lake Harriet, 5:30 p.m.
“Never Made 60,” July 21, Elliot Park, Minneapolis, 6:30 p.m.
“Never Made 60,” July 23, Nicollet Island Pavilion, 10:30 a.m
“All Music was Once New,” July 25, Lake Harriet, 7:30 p.m..
“The People’s Choice,” July 26, Lake Harriet, 5:30 p.m.

For more information
www.mplspops.org

Steve Share edits the Labor Review, the official publication of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation. Learn more at www.minneapolisunions.org