Fanfares at Fenway

Working in classical music, the last place I’d expect to find myself is at Fenway Park. I had come a few times for work – mainly to capture Keith Lockhart throwing out the ceremonial first pitch. But this was something new entirely. As a portion of this year’s Holiday Pops concert for BSO Now, the Boston Pops headed over to do a recording session at Fenway.

Having an outdoor venue meant that we could safely socially-distance the brass players in a way that we couldn’t do at that point at Symphony Hall due to the health measures. This led to a small ensemble being placed in the outfield, and our crew working to capture everything! The audio team built a full recording studio in the visitors dugout, while the Red Sox Productions team handled the major video components. They did have a bit of home field advantage compared to us whose gear rarely left Symphony Hall or Tanglewood.

We did bring a pair of robotic cameras from Symphony Hall to gain some additional angles. After a few technical glitches, we abandoned our plan to setup next to audio in the dugout and instead placed our camera operator inside the Green Monster. It may not have been the most luxurious of setups, but it is really interesting seeing how the scoreboard is still updated by hand from inside the wall itself. We were able to peek out through a small slit in the wall to keep an eye on the happenings outside.

We spent 2 full days at Fenway capturing a variety of music – mainly holiday tunes, but also some baseball standards. Wally the Green Monster also stopped by to give Keith a hand with some of the songs. We finished off with Keith Lockhart taking a few swings at home plate – giving me one of my favorite edit points of all time – replacing the horse whip in Sleigh Ride with the crack of the bat when Keith connected with the ball for a solid base hit.

You can get a sneak peek of some the media we captured below, and also see the Boston Pops Holiday Celebration on BSO Now starting on December 10th.