Pops Orchestra performs hits of the seasons in holiday-themed concerts

While other Sarasota area arts organizations are working hard to build audiences back to where they were before the pandemic changed everything, the Pops Orchestra is looking at potentially adding performances to keep up with demand.

Just weeks after opening sales for its 2023-24 season, the orchestra led by music director Robyn L. Bell, had already sold 74% of the seats available for its four-concert series presented at Riverview Performing Arts Center in Sarasota and Neel Performing Arts Center on the State College of Florida Manatee-Sarasota campus in Bradenton.

It’s a good kind of dilemma for the orchestra, which has some paid professionals amid the volunteer community members, educators and college students who make up the ensemble.

“We have discussions about whether they have it in their capacity to add a third show for all four programs. These are decisions we’ll have to make as we move forward,” Bell said. The more subscriptions the organization sells, the less it has to worry about marketing efforts, but it also means few if any seats for people who may want to discover the orchestra for the first time or introduce it to friends.

The organization added a third performance for last season’s Beatles tribute concert featuring the Liverpool Legends.

At a time when arts groups across the country are cutting back, trimming staff or reconfiguring their operations and seeing a decline in subscriptions, Bell said audiences are showing a keen interest in attending performances featuring something comforting, uplifting and familiar but presented in new ways.

And Bell works with guest artists, like a Beach Boys tribute group coming in the new season and solo singers, to create “as many new arrangements as I can. I have an arsenal of three arrangers that we work with,” she said. “We want to create something unique for our audiences and for the guest artists,” she said.

The Pops Orchestra seasons follow a formula, for the most part, with some flexibility. It starts with a Veterans Day show and includes a holiday season concert, romantic music suited to Valentine’s Day. This year, Bell shifted the final program to allow it to fall on St. Patrick’s Day weekend for a “Celtic Pops” program.

Here’s a look at what’s coming in the new season

‘Surfin’ USA: Veterans Show”

Nov. 12-13

Even though the Pops honor veterans every fall, Bell said the concerts are always different. “How many Veterans Day concerts have I gone to that it’s the same concert. Our veterans deserve more than that, so we’re finding a way to merge the Beach Boys and patriotic music,” she said.

The “Surfin’ USA” concerts feature the group Sail On, a Beach Boys tribute band, primarily in the first half, with the orchestra performing patriotic favorites in the second half. Actor and director Jeffery Kin will serve as a narrator for the programs.

Bell said some pop acts work better with an orchestra than others.

“A Traditional rock or pop band is pretty much a melody and baseline, drums and perhaps a guitar riff. That doesn’t always work with a full orchestra, so we look for different layers, and with the later Beach Boys, their music became thicker with more things to sink your teeth into and that lends itself to an orchestral arrangement.

‘A Bublé Holiday’

Dec. 10-11

Singer Chris Burke joins the orchestra for “A Bublé Holiday,” featuring the music of Michael Bublé. Bell said she was introduced to Burke by local singer and musician Jenny Kim-Godfrey, who worked with him on one of her touring shows.

Burke is a Nashville-based singer who will be singing such hits as “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” “I’ll be Home for Christmas” and “White Christmas” in the style of Bublé.

‘I Love You to the Moon and Back’

Feb. 11-12

For Valentine’s Day, Bell is pairing singers Anne Tormela and Nick Palance for a program called “I Love You to the Moon and Back.” Tormela moved to the Sarasota area during the pandemic and reached out to Bell about some kind of performance. And then she found Palance from California.

“They both sent me their list of tunes in their arsenal, trying to figure out what we’d do. I saw this nature theme coming up, with the stars and the moon and asked if we could put that together.” the concert will feature such songs as “Fly Me to the Moon,” “Blue Skies,” “Moon River” and others.

Arts Newsletter: Sign up to receive the latest news on the Sarasota area arts scene every Monday

An eclectic mix of shows: Ringling’s Art of Performance creates a year-long international festival

‘Celtic Pops’

March 17-18

This concert will explode with the sounds of the Jacobites Pipe and Drum Group, joining the Irish Dance Academy of Sarasota and the Riverview High School Highland Dancers.

Gary Reinstrom, the orchestra’s principal horn, leads the Jacobites, and when Bell saw the possibility of adjusting the calendar to include a St. Patrick’s Day concert, “we thought we had a perfect concert made.”

The bagpipes, which she said can only play in a couple of keys, will be featured in a program interspersed with orchestral pieces, like “Four Scottish Dances” and “Danny Boy.” Bell said the concert also will feature an extra dose of more traditional classical music to “satisfy the people who have been asking for more.”

Concerts are at 3 p.m. Sundays at Riverview Performing Arts Center, 1 Ram Way, Sarasota, and 7:30 p.m. at Neel Performing Arts Center, 5480 26th St., West, Bradenton on the campus of State College of Florida Bradenton-Sarasota. Single tickets are $30-$60. Subscriptions are $110-$180. For more information: 941-926-7677; thepopsorchestra.org/get-tickets

Follow Jay Handelman on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Contact him at jay.handelman@heraldtribune.com. And please support local journalism by subscribing to the Herald-Tribune.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Four-concert Pops Orchestra season mixes classics and pop hits