News & Updates

Grand Rapids Symphony Principal Pops Conductor Bob Bernhardt doesn’t mince words when he talks about film composer John Williams. “He’s my hero,” Bernhard says with a smile. Bernhardt comes by that belief honestly. During his 14-year tenor as conductor of the Boston Pops, Williams in 1992 hired Bernhardt to be a guest conductor of the most famous pops orchestra in the world. Ever since, Bernhardt has continued to guest conduct the Boston Pops nearly every season... Read More

Great movies, like great symphonies and great paintings, echo and reverberate through time.  With its jazz-flavored score, Technicolor costuming, and classic dancing, the 2016 film, La La Land , garnered critical acclaim, five Academy Awards, and enthusiastic audiences. But sixty-five years before La La Land , there was An American in Paris . The 1951 musical, starring the indomitable Gene Kelly and elegant Leslie Caron, weds the worlds of symphonic music, dance, and fine art... Read More

Fleetwood Mac’s drummer, Mick Fleetwood, who gave his name to the band and who is one of its two remaining founders, became a member of the group for reasons having nothing to do with music. What’s more, Fleetwood only found out recently. One of the top pop/rock acts of the 1970s and 1980s, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, Fleetwood Mac remains among the best-selling rock bands of all time. Grand Rapids Pops salutes the iconic group with “A... Read More

Cathie Ryan is an Irish singer from Detroit, which, at first blush, sounds a little like salsa from New York City. Listen to her sing, and the blush immediately fades. The first-generation Irish-American, daughter of two Irish immigrants, Ryan grew up steeped in the music and culture of her ancestral homeland at home and spent plenty of time with her grandparents and extended family in the Emerald Isle. “The roots to Ireland within me are strong, but everything that has grown... Read More

By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk - E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was one of film composer John Williams’ greatest triumphs. Typically, the way films are made, composers are brought on board as a film is being edited. After viewing the final cut, they have mere weeks to compose and record music that will forever be attached to the movie. It’s that fast. When Williams set out record the soundtrack for the finale of the story about a boy who befriends a lost alien, he struggled to fit... Read More