Maceo Parker, Debbie Reynolds and Pink Martini are the names that jump out from the Minnesota Orchestra's Pops and Jazz series for 2010-11. Also noteworthy in the announcement last week was a shift that will move singer Dee Dee Bridgewater from a July date to a December holiday program on the same weekend that Doc Severinsen will be in town.
Bridgewater and Irvin Mayfeld, the orchestra's jazz artistic director, will play with the orchestra on Dec. 17 in a "Yuletide Jazz" event. Severinsen brings his "Jingle Bell Doc" holiday show on Dec. 18-19.
Singer Lizz Wright will replace Bridgewater on the July 23 bill, with clarinetist Evan Christopher.
The Pops season kicks off with an afternoon concert Oct. 17 with crooner Engelbert Humperdinck. On Oct. 30, Sarah Hicks, principal pops conductor, will lead the orchestra in playing Bernard Herrmann's score from "Psycho," while the Hitchcock film is played on a screen. Hicks again conducts on Nov. 20, when Ann Hampton Callaway will sing Broadway and jazz standards.
Reynolds, whose career spans six decades, kicks in a new year with an afternoon program on Jan. 9, 2011, with Hicks conducting the orchestra. She will sing a selection of her own hits.
Trumpeter Charles Lazarus will be featured in the orchestra's Big Band Valentine's Day celebration on Feb. 12, 2011. Lazarus, an orchestra member since 2000, is a noted composer.
Five-time Grammy winner Michael Feinstein brings his "Sinatra Project" to Orchestra Hall on March 5-6, 2011, and the Peking Acrobats perform April 3.
Pink Martini, a 12-piece ensemble of instrumentalists and vocalists, makes its debut with the orchestra April 8-9, 2011, with a program that ranges from classical to Latin themes.
Vocalist Bobby McFerrin, who spent time as the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra's creative chair in the 1980s, does a solo show at Orchestra Hall on April 22 and Hicks conducts a program of 1980s dance hits ("Billie Jean," "Like a Virgin") May 6-7. The season concludes June 17, 2011, with a Grateful Dead tribute.
In addition to the yuletide show, the jazz season brings Branford Marsalis and Terence Blanchard together on Feb. 27, 2011. Parker, Mayfield and a guest to be announced will play a funky evening May 22, 2011. Parker is best known for his work with James Brown and Parliament-Funkadelic.
Graydon Royce • 612-673-7299
Drone footage shows Ukrainian village battered to ruins as residents flee Russian advance
In heated western Minn. GOP congressional primary, outsiders challenging incumbent
Minnesota Sports Hall of Fame: A class-by-class list of all members
