Discogs PWA

Cincinnati Pops Orchestra

The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra is a pops orchestra based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, founded in 1977 out of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Its members are also the members of the Cincinnati Symphony, and the Pops is managed by the same administration. Erich Kunzel, the Pops' founding conductor, continued to lead the Pops until his death on September 1, 2009. It was Maestro Max Rudolf who, in 1965, invited Erich Kunzel, then a young conductor on the faculty of Brown University, to join the Cincinnati Symphony. That October the Dartmouth graduate, who had been personal assistant to the great French conductor Pierre Monteux, conducted his first sold-out 8 O'Clock Pops concert. From this orchestra eventually sprang the Cincinnati Pops. It was the beginning of a modern orchestral legend and, 30 years later, the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra is still performing for packed houses in Cincinnati's Music Hall and gaining new fans the world over through tour performances and its recordings on the Telarc label. In May 2008, it was announced that the Cincinnati Pops received an invitation to play at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. They were the only American orchestra invited to play for the opening weekend. Erich Kunzel died in 2009. In December 2010, John Morris Russell was named as the new director of the Pops, effective September 1, 2011.

Members: Jim Pugh, Gerri Sutyak, Kathleen Robertson, Mike Sharfe, Mark Cleghorn, Lois Reid, Laura McLellan, Vince DiMartino, Denise Doolan, Randy Sandke, Judith Martin, Frank Proto, Marie Speziale, Richard Jensen, Philip Collins, Marc Wolfley, Robin Graham (2), William Winstead, Alexander Kerr, Randolph Bowman, Gillian Benet Sella, Timothy Berens, Larrie Howard, Lon Bussell, Scott Belck, Julie Spangler, Yumi Hwang Williams, Ronald Aufmann, Wayne Anderson (4), Michael Berkowitz, Marna Street-Ramsey, William Harrod, Sylvia Mitchell, William Platt, Stacey Woolley, John Birge, Michael Chertock, Susan Marshall-Peterson, Eugene Espino, Duane Dugger, Michael Kenyon (3), Harold Byers, David Fishlock, Matthew Zory, Jr., Sari Eringer-Thoman, Rick Vizachero, Rebecca Kruger Fryxell, Peter Norton, Michelle Edgar Dugan, Charles Bell (6), Daniel Culnan, Catherine Lange-Jensen, Thomas Sherwood, Paul Frankenfeld, Eric Bates (4), Chiun-Teng Cheng, Gerald Itzkoff, Joan Voorhees, Dana Rusinak, Drake Crittenden Ash, Ronald Bozicevich, James Braid, Charles Snavely, Douglas Lindsay, Stephen Fryxell, Owen Lee (3), Scott Mozlin, Sylvia Samis, Matthew Lad, David Moore (34), Steven Rosen (3), Luo-Jia Wu, Hugh Michie, Richard Johnson (32), Eric Kim, Darla De Deppo Bertolone, Paul Patterson (10), Borivoje Angelich, Robert Schauer, James Eastman, Donald Gibson (2), Martin James (3), Robert Howes (4), Richard Porotsky, Carmine Campione, Conny Kiradjieff, DeAnne Cleghorn, Raymond Stilwell, Milton Blalack, Tony Chipurn, Charles Van Ornum, Joseph Somogyi, Oscar Rubens Fernandez, Kyril Magg, Julian Wilkison, Richard Hawley (2), James Lambert (3), Serge Shababian, Rochelle Doepke, Steven Pride, Hye-Sun Park, Mark Rike, and Michael Thornton (9)