Keith Lockhart

"For the baseball player, see Keith Lockhart (baseball)"

Keith Lockhart (born November 7, 1959, Poughkeepsie, New York, U.S.) is an orchestral conductor.

He is the current Music Director of the Boston Pops Orchestra, taking over from John Williams in 1995. Previous to this, Lockhart was associate conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops, as well as Music Director of the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, all based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Lockhart is an alumnus of Furman University, and of the Brevard Music Center, where he had his first experience of conducting. He was a conducting fellow at Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute.

Now in his fourteenth season as conductor of the Boston Pops, Keith Lockhart has conducted more than 900 concerts in Symphony Hall and around the world, including 28 national tours, 12 Fourth of July concerts on Boston's Esplanade, four overseas tours of Japan and South Korea, and performances at Carnegie Hall. In 2002, he led the Boston Pops in the pre-game show of Super Bowl XXXVI at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans marking the first time an orchestra was featured in performance during a Super Bowl. The Boston Pops has released eight albums on RCA Victor under Mr. Lockhart — "Runnin' Wild: The Boston Pops Play Glenn Miller", "American Visions", "The Celtic Album", "Holiday Pops", "A Splash of Pops, Encore!", "The Latin Album", and the latest "My Favorite Things — A Richard Rodgers Celebration".

Lockhart began his musical studies with piano lessons from Gwen Stevens at the age of seven. He holds degrees from Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as well as the honorary Doctor of Music degree from Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio. He is an alumnus of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the national men's music fraternity.

Since 1998, Lockhart has also been Music Director of the Utah Symphony. In November 2006, Lockhart announced that he will leave this position at the end of the 2008-2009 season. In 2002, he led the Utah Symphony as part of the opening exercises of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City.

On October 1, 2007, Lockhart assumed artistic leadership of the Brevard Music Center, succeeding David Effron.

External links

* [http://keithlockhart.com Official site]