Boston Pops perform in Sarasota and Tampa

It's a Saturday morning, and America's most famous conductor is a little late calling in for his interview.

"Sorry," Keith Lockhart says, "I wasn't procrastinating. I was dealing with a 2-year-old."

The superstar conductor is calling from his Boston home. As most New Englanders speaking to a Floridian in January, he's curious about the weather here.

He has less mundane things coming up than dealing with his toddler and talking about the weather. He was on his way down here, and he was bringing several dozen world-class musicians with him.

"We tour Florida pretty much every year," he said, "and we always manage to do it around this time."

Lockhart, of course, is the conductor of the Boston Pops. He and his orchestra will perform Tuesday at the Amalie Arena in Tampa and Friday the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall in Sarasota.

The Boston Pops is probably the only orchestra in the country that can attract an arena-sized audience a thousand miles from home. And quality musicianship, Lockhart said, is only part of the reason.

"There are a lot of great orchestras," he said. "And a lot of them do great pops programs. But people will come to see the Boston Pops who don't go see their local orchestra."

Part of the appeal of the Boston Pops is its history. Lockhart is in his 20th year as the orchestra's conductor, but he's only one of 20 principal conductors in the orchestra's 130 history. His predecessors have included music legends Arthur Fiedler and John Williams, and such lesser-known figures as Wilhelm Rietzel and Ernst Schmidt.

Fiedler was Boston Pops conductor for nearly a half-century, from 1930 to 1979, and his is probably still the name most associated with orchestra. He and Leonard Bernstein might be the most famous American orchestral conductors of all time.

Lockhart took over the baton from Williams, Fiedler's successor, who's best known for composing the "Star Wars" theme and other iconic movie themes and scores.

Fiedler's mark is still very much past of the orchestra, Lockhart said. It was Fiedler who brought the Boston Pops to television for regular specials, and broadened its fan base beyond Massachusetts.

"The Boston Pops really is America's orchestra," Lockhart said. "One of the great things is that people come to our concerts even if they think they don't like orchestra music."

The program for the Florida concerts includes a mix classical music and orchestral arrangements of works by bands such as Queen and the Beatles.

The classical selections are both familiar are important, including excerpts from Dvorak's "New World Symphony," the first piece of serious classical music that incorporated such influences as native American songs and African-American spiritual. It was a radical work in its time, and it represented a turning point in classical music, Lockhart said.

People who aren't aficionados of classical music needn't fear the classical segments of the concert, he said. "It's engaging, exciting and oh-so-accessible classical music," he said.

One of the most popular of Fiedler's innovations was the audience sing-along. Lockhart has brought those back, partly as an homage to Fiedler, and the sing-along segment is always a hit with audiences. It's fun to participate in, he said, and it sounds gorgeous. "If you haven't heard it," he said, "you can't imagine the sound of thousands of people singing 'Hey Jude.' "

Details: 8 p.m. Feb. 6, Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall, 777 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Tickets: $135-$145. Information: 941-953-3368, vanwezel.org.

Marty Clear, features writer/columnist, can be reached at 941-708-7919. Follow twitter.com/martinclear.

This story was originally published February 1, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Boston Pops perform in Sarasota and Tampa ."