Sat. June 20 and Sun. June 21 

We had a chat recently with Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart – 15 years at the helm – about the Pops spring season. Two main themes emerged: Baseball and Tributes. (The season extends through June 21.)
     Some of this interview is online at www.bostonherald.com – please check that out - but there wasn’t space for everything there, so we’ve given you some pretty fun out-takes.

The Boston Red Sox and Boston Pops: Brothers in arms?  
You think about the crossover of Red Sox Nation and Boston Pops Nation, it’s a pretty direct one. I know the album’s charting on the Billboard charts, which is exceptional as it’s not a national release album. It’s mostly being sold here.
But you are America’s orchestra are you not?
We are America’s orchestra, but we have to show our allegiance to specific Boston things now and then or they won’t let us call ourselves the Boston Pops anymore.
What happens when you get to, say, Cleveland?
 I don’t tend to play a lot of Boston Red Sox music.
Now, you recorded David Ortiz “crack of bat” for your “Casey at the Bat” when he was actually hitting. Good thing you didn’t wait on that one. There’d be a lot of down-time
That’s mean-spirited. I don’t like to think there’s any connection between Big Papi making his orchestral debut and his numbers going down. I’m sure this is only a temporary thing. Everybody’s so quick to get on the guy and he’s largely the reason we were in the World Series or even to get in the series. I was there when he hit the walkoff in 13th against the Yankees [in 2004]. You’ve got to allow everyone an off month.
The mission of the Pops: Has it changed?
I don’t think so. I think we’re constantly tweaking it, keeping it vaguely associated with contemporary culture and what’s going on. That’s what [Arthur] Fielder did and that’s what John [Williams] tried to do, and I think from many angles, this is a fairly conservative season. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to go conservative and stick with our base constituency when things are down a little bit. Nonetheless, we try to draw in the widest possible audience from the groups you don’t normally think of as symphony goees. My favorite person was the guy in the middle in the front row of the Amanda Palmer concert who had a 15 inch blond Mohawk and a lot of piercings.
You’ve been here 15 years. Do you see another 15?
Yeah, but not [to mean it] arrogantly. When you sign on to something like this, it’s a long-term commitment, not the kind of thing yo say “I’ll do this for a couple years.” It’s amazing how fast it’s gone by. You turn around and go, “Wow, that’s a real tenure.” I don’t know if that means I’ll be here another 15 years or what, but at this point we’ve woven ourselves together.
What’s the greatest challenge?
The greatest short-term challenge with long term implications is keeping the orchestra relevant and keeping out of the box as a national institution. The changes have been so profound in the past 15 years. I had neither a cell phone or an e-mail address when I became conductor of the Boston Pops. Now, so much of our entertainment and information has changed so much. It’s not about who’s going to give us the best CD contract.  Maintaining your position as a national artistic institution is about how to use the Internet,  the web page. We’ve taken baby steps, but nowhere near as what pop [music] has done. And touring, each year has become harder and harder to do, much more financially unsustainable. It costs three or four times as much to tour around the country as it did 15 years ago, and the fees have not gone up three or four times to compensate. And corporate sponsorships are very very hard to get. Those are the annoying practical challenges.
You have a lot of tributes this season.
 There’s the calendar reason. A lot of people had anniversaries. The Lincoln thing, of course, the bicentennial, but it’s not just because of him being born 200 years ago but because of all this new energy that swept the country last year, and  a lot of invoking his name and his ideals. That seemed an obvious one. The one for Harry Ellis Dickson has actually been delayed for a year, so we’ve been trying to get that right.  He meant a lot in the life of the Pops. I got to know him when he was into his early 90s. And he still out-talked me. John Pizzarelli was one of the first Pops artists I worked with I came to Boston. So, we go way back, we’ve performed a lot together. He’s a wonderful singer and a great entertainer and he makes it seem like he’s performing in his living room for you. Michael Cavanaugh doing his Billy Joel thing is born from the Twyla Tharp “Movin’ Out” musical. And when you think of great contempoary pop songwriters, Billy Joel’s right up there after the Beatles and Paul Simon in terms of great songs everybody knows. Linda Eder is coming with the Judy Garland album, a great living songstress pays tribute to a legend. And Michael Feinstein is not a stranger to the Pops,  but he’s got his whole new album of Frank Sinatra stuff.
With Pizzarelli and Feinstein you’ve got two Sinatras.
Yeah, I guess, but it goes a little broader.
So you’re playing behind them. Do you get the vibe of maybe that’s what it was like to play behind Frank?
That’s an interesting question. Each of these guys are very different performers than Frank Sinatra, I think it’s more that this guy’s stuff is truly classic, because it bears repetition on a lot of different canvasses. And I think it’s getting to work with Pizzarelli with great stuff associaated with somebody else. Michael, he’s so good, I know he’ll make the material his own and the source material is so good.
And, the Pops will play from Dropkick Murphys’ “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” from “The Red Sox Album”
We actually have a film built for that that pays tribute to the Red Sox and conncts Fewnay Park to Symphony Hall. It’s only a mile or so. There’s no vocalist, except I have a feeling we’ll have a lot of – how should I say this? – amateur vocalists out in the audience.
How different is this for you to do?
It’s fun. We can make a lot of noise too. There’s this punk-Celtic thing that the Dropkick Murphys are famous for and they love our version of it. It’s always been that way with the Pops. When we play the Beatles, we don’t sound like the Beatles either. But it’s about re-interpretation. The song rocks and the arrangement rocks and we can make some noise, perhaps not quite as grungy.

What's left:

June 20, MICHAEL FEINSTEIN: THE SINATRA PROJECT: The Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra welcomes one of the premier interpreters of the American Songbook, Michael Feinstein, in concerts drawing from his latest recording, The Sinatra Project. A consummate entertainer, Feinstein and pianist/arranger Bill Elliott join the Pops in renditions of such Sinatra favorites asThe first part of the program features "Swing at the Pops," a selection of rousing tunes from the Big Band era,

June 21: LET'S DANCE: The final concert of the Pops spring season is  offering audiences a sentimental journey through some of the most popular tunes of the Swing Era, Erich Kunzel leads the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra, and Jefferey Berger is the evening's featured vocalist. Patrons are invited to swing the night away on a dance floor cleared especially for the occasion.

Tickets: $20 to $89

301 Boylston St., 617-266-1200, www.bostonpops.org