Erich Kunzel and Cincinnati

EK Few label/artist relationships have been more pivotal than that between Telarc and Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. As producer Elaine Martone put it, “It was really a symbiotic relationship. We put them on the map, and they put us on the map.”¹ Telarc’s high-quality recordings and speaker-shattering sound effects garnered press interest in the recordings, and in turn the orchestra’s prolific output and solid sales numbers brought Telarc the resources to engage in other projects. Numerous Pops projects spent time on the Billboard Top Classical Crossover Albums charts and Kunzel was named Billboard Classical Crossover Recording Artist of the Year four years in a row.

Telarc and Kunzel’s first project together in 1978, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, was popular enough to become Telarc’s overall best-selling disc,. The remainder of their 100 collaborations ranged from Broadway musicals to movie theme music to collections of classical works. Telarc received numerous suggestions for Pops projects from listeners, both unsolicited and as the result of a contest held through their Quarter Notes newsletter. Kunzel himself had a seemingly endless supply of ideas, and the notes on Pops project repertoire fill an entire binder on the shelves of producer Bob Woods.

The selections on a Cincinnati Pops recording might change right at the recording session. Kunzel would sometimes direct his staff at a morning recording session to have a piece from the library ready for the orchestra to play through at the afternoon session. In the control room during playback, orchestra librarians would be lined up behind the producer’s chair, pad and pencil in hand, ready to act on a barked order to remove a triangle note here or add a sforzando there. The first librarian in line would dash out to the stage to make the edit and the line would move up for the next order.²

Kunzel’s carnival-barker energy and sometimes rough sense of humor belied the fact that he was a serious and capable conductor. Kunzel’s mentor was famed pedagogue Pierre Monteux, and it was at Monteux’s summer conducting camp in Hancock, Maine that Kunzel first fell in love with the state that was to become his second home.³ For many years, Kunzel directed the National Memorial Day Concert on the Mall in Washington DC, and he guest-conducted orchestras around the world.

Kunzel was also a devoted educator and advocate for other musicians. He championed the construction of the School for Creative and Performing Arts adjacent to Cincinnati Music Hall. He mentored numerous young conductors including Keith Lockhart, Crafton Beck, and John Morris Russell. In a WGUC Public Radio tribute upon Kunzel’s death in 2009, trumpet legend Doc Severinsen credited Kunzel: “Erich had more to do with whatever success I had than any one person.”⁴

1. Elaine Martone, Interview the author, September 26, 2023 ↩︎
2. As assistant engineer at some of these sessions, the author’s job was to manage tape playback and stay out of the way! ↩︎
3. Kunzel’s summer home on Swans Island was just on the opposite side of Acadia National Park from Hancock. Daniel T. DiMuzio, “Erich Kunzel ’57: The Prince of Pops,” Dartmouth Alumni Magazine, May 1986. ↩︎
4. “The Spectacular Legacy of Erich Kunzel,” WGUC Public Radio, September 14, 2009. ↩︎