Guest S.D. Pops Conductor Makes No Apologies to Snobs

Pops conductor Ned Battista takes his work seriously but not somberly. Founder and resident conductor of the Houston Pops, the Texas maestro is not the sort of pops conductor to wear funny party hats and snort corny jokes into the microphone between pieces. Nor does he tire of defending the pops repertory to the highbrow aficionados of classical symphonic music.

“I’d say that my own orchestra is the best defense of pops music,” Battista said. “It’s made up of hand-picked players who are well-rehearsed, and we do solid arrangements--at least I think they are.”

Battista and his colleague, Marc Elam, do most of the arranging for his orchestra.

“The product is fine, not sloppy, and our audience knows it,” Battista said. “The usual problem with pops repertory is that there is not enough rehearsal time and the players appear bored. Of course, the music is not Beethoven or Mahler. These may be cameos, but they are valid musical statements.”

Although Battista is not bringing his Houston orchestra to San Diego, he will open a four-night stand tonight with the San Diego Pops at Hospitality Point. For the record, his observation about under-rehearsed and bored symphony players slumming their way through pops repertory was not specifically aimed at the San Diego organization. But it does point to the reason Battista formed his own orchestra to play the music he champions.

Unlike the local pops, which is merely the summer manifestation of the San Diego Symphony, Battista’s Houston Pops is an independent orchestra with no ties whatsoever to the Houston Symphony. That orchestra has some seven weeks of pops programming called the Houston Symphony Exxon Pops, and, according to the Houston Symphony’s artistic administrator Douglas Merilatt, there is no competition between the two pops organizations in that city.

Battista started his group in 1971 while he was still a trumpeter with the Houston Symphony, and about 10 years later he put down his horn to work at his orchestra full time.

“Once in a while, I feel some regret that I put down the trumpet and no longer play, although 20 years playing in a symphony orchestra was a genuine labor,” he said. “My curiosity had grown beyond mere playing. Some people said I should have left three years earlier, however.”

Battista described his orchestra as “a typical studio orchestra, the type that would have been found in Hollywood in the 1940s to record most movie scores.”

The group is heavy on winds and percussion, and most of the woodwinds double on saxophone. In a given year, the Houston Pops plays 25 to 30 concerts a year--mostly indoors in Houston’s Jones Hall--and its subscription season runs from September to

June, parallel to the symphony’s winter season. Battista is big on what he calls commercial stars--such “Vegas-type acts” as Dinah Shore, Rita Moreno, Roger Miller, Pearl Bailey and Toni Tennille--to keep the 3,000-seat Jones Hall full.

With the San Diego Pops, Battista is conducting a mainly Gershwin program, although he acknowledged that it seems unfair to keep Gershwin confined to the pops orchestra ghetto.

“In his own time, he was looked down upon because he was not dealing in ‘high art’, although today most of that sort of snobbery has disappeared. In the case of ‘Porgy and Bess,’ his opera has come into its own with productions at the Met, not to mention Houston Grand Opera’s touring version. The problem is that the symphony orchestra is essentially a European instrument. The bulk of its music pays homage to European music, and Gershwin hardly fits that mold.”

Battista listed two Gershwin pieces, “An American in Paris” and the Piano Concerto in F Major, that he feels are unduly neglected by American symphony orchestras.

“In the 20 years I played in the Houston Symphony, I can recall only one subscription concert in which we played ‘An American in Paris,’ although we did use it more frequently in special benefit and holiday programs. I think ‘An American in Paris’ is as valid as a lot of European pieces that receive regular performances, such as Smetana’s ‘The Moldau’ or Paul Dukas’ tone poem ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.’ ”

Battista’s San Diego program will include “An American in Paris” as well as the “Rhapsody in Blue” with pianist Kenneth Bookstein.