Sarah Hicks: Pops star

She wants to do this. Sarah Hicks really wants to be the pops conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra. How odd is that?

"It was surprising to me," said music director Osmo Vänskä, explaining that many conductors would look down their nose at such an assignment.

"Often they would get a face like this," Vänskä said, showing off a scowl during a news conference to announce Hicks' appointment. "And they would say, 'OK, I'll do it just because I have to get some dollars.'"

In this slightly awkward moment, Vänskä was simply stating the truth: Pops programs often are sniffed at as the redheaded stepchild in symphonic music. Why, if you spent years in classical training, would you turn to the lightweights?

"Many people see it that way," Vänskä said after the news conference. Yet, sensing the question's intent, Vänskä spoke as the head of an organization that must sell nearly 400,000 tickets every year to feed a $30 million budget.

"I don't want to give the message that this will be lesser done," Vänskä said. "It goes to this idea that whatever we are playing [pops, classical, jazz, Broadway], the audience is coming because they know we are going to do a good job. I was delighted with Sarah."

Hicks, 36, represents a paradigm shift in the world of pops programming, which often has been the domain of celebrity musicians who may or may not be deeply invested in the organization. Doc Severinsen retired in 2007 after 14 years as Minnesota's pops conductor. Marvin Hamlisch is principal pops conductor in Washington D.C., Pittsburgh, Denver, Milwaukee, Seattle and San Diego. Richard Kaufman, a film and TV music conductor who lives in Los Angeles, leads pops programs in Dallas, Tampa Bay and Orange County and does a specific program with the Chicago Symphony.

"Doc was very much doing Doc shows with us," said orchestra President Michael Henson last week. "He was the linchpin of what he did, and those were wonderful shows. But with Sarah, we are looking at pops in a different way, an experiment over the next five to 10 years."

Time to get more casual

Hicks recognizes the class structure that Vänskä alluded to in Monday's news conference. Musicians and conductors are trained on Mozart and Mahler, not Led Zeppelin.

"That being said, orchestras have had problems where they view pops as a sideshow to the main event," Hicks said. "I find that closed-minded, as if to say classical music is the pinnacle of Western culture. There is so much else out there, and if we don't give it its due, we're doing a disservice."

If there is a defining facet of Hicks' tenure as pops conductor, it is likely to be her ability to communicate with audiences both as a speaker and a programmer. She came to Minnesota in 2006 as the first female assistant in the organization's history and quickly established herself with "Inside the Classics," a popular series that she programs with violist Sam Bergman. Attractive, friendly, articulate, she speaks eloquently from the podium. Those skills have allowed her to connect with audiences seeking a casual relationship with the orchestra.

"I don't see a lot of people of my generation in the concert hall," she said in a recent interview. "And part of that is education and part of that is the experience of sitting for two hours silently and watching people in tuxes onstage. That, to me, is a bit of an alienating experience."

Another success was the orchestra's "Scandinavian Christmas," which Hicks arranged and conducted last December.

"That's saying we know who's in the community, what your cultural heritage is, what you might want to hear in a concert hall," Hicks said.

The pops program will not fully bear her stamp until next season. In the meantime, her upcoming duties give a glimpse. Friday, she conducts "Broadway Rocks." On Saturday, she hosts a season sampler concert with the orchestra. The following week, she and Bergman explore Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony in "Inside the Classics." And on Oct. 31, she will work with pianist and singer Ben Folds.

The Ben Folds show demonstrates what a vital pops program can do for an orchestra. As of last Monday, 72 percent of all ticket purchases for that show were made by people who are new to the orchestra. Gwen Pappas, orchestra spokesperson, said anecdotal evidence indicates similar patterns whenever jazz, Broadway, pops or big-band music is programmed.

Future audiences

Hicks is here for awhile. Her contract runs for four years. After splitting time between Minnesota and Richmond, Va., since 2006, she and her husband (and two dogs and countless pairs of shoes) recently bought a house in Minneapolis. (She is obligated to spend nine weeks each year with the North Carolina Symphony in Raleigh, where she just accepted a post as associate conductor.) She has more than 10,000 tunes on her computer ("a couple weeks ago I downloaded the Dirty Projectors' album, which I'm kind of obsessed with right now"), an affinity for world music and a firm belief in the power of pops programming -- echoing Vänskä's notion that it's less important what is being performed by the orchestra than how it is being performed.

Hicks will never be the former music director for "The Tonight Show," as Severinsen was, but the new position offers some opportunity to parlay her charisma and youth into a different kind of celebrity, though she is reluctant to use those terms.

"It has less to do with celebrity than accessibility," she said. "I want to engage people and make them comfortable and have a sense of humor but also seriousness, but it's not celebrity. I want people to feel comfortable enough to walk up to me and say, 'I saw you onstage. Great concert, when's the next one?'"

Ultimately, Hicks will be judged on whether she puts warm bodies in the seats at Orchestra Hall, or any other venue. In Richmond, where she was associate conductor, Hicks frequently programmed work outside the concert hall. Too, her tenure will allow observers a window on the musical evolution of a symphony orchestra reacting to economic realities and audience patterns. Hicks has no doubt that orchestras will survive, but looking out 50 years, she believes these monolithic institutions need to change.

"Orchestras are realizing there are discrete audiences for different concerts," she said. "There are people who will come only to pops -- that's their experience with the orchestra. The recession has been a wake-up call to orchestras in particular about what's working and what's not, and how we can diversify what we offer to our community."

Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299