Starting 2025 with a Pop

Philadelphia-based South African conductor Andrew Lipke was in fine form when he led the annual Santa Barbara Symphony New Year Pops concert at the Granada featuring a mix of film scores, pop, rock and other hits, with Lipke even swapping his baton for an electric guitar.

Symphony board member Robert Weinman returned as honorary maestro to lead the musicians in the rousing “Thunder and Lightning Polka” with American Idol contestant Micaela McCall from our Eden by the Beach adding her soulful vocals to the heady mix.

The packed audience, donning party hats after quaffing champagne in the theater lobby, listened to a 90-minute show including John Williams’ “Star Wars (Main Title),” Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” and Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer’s “Moon River” from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Former big band singer Ginny Mancini, Henry’s widow, once told me at a Beverly Hills dinner party the film’s producers wanted to delete the song from the film. One can only imagine what would have happened if they had been successful.

Always a cracking start to the New Year…