Lockhart, Pops bring holiday gift> Augusta show filled with music and fun

Earlier this week, Keith Lockhart had been in San Diego with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra. It didn’t look much like Christmas there to him, but when he got to Augusta on Tuesday and saw all the snow, he knew it was beginning to look a lot like Christmas. It was beginning to sound a lot like Christmas, too, when Lockhart, the conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, lifted his baton to lead a busy stage of robust musicians in a concert of holiday music that same night at the Augusta Civic Center.

It had been 17 years since the Pops performed in Maine, Boston’s boy wonder told a nearly full house of festive listeners. And for the Pops as well as for Mainers, that was way too long.

The Esplanade Orchestra consists of free-lance musicians and is different from the actual Boston Pops, which consists of members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, minus 12 of the principals. The Esplanade is primarily a fun-time-of-year group, and performs in the summer and during the Christmas holidays. So the group was smartly in its element with such standards as “Here We Come A-Caroling,” “O, Christmas Tree,” a medley of Christmas waltzes, jazz tunes and vocal accompaniment.

Those are sure quantities. But in between the feel-good, upbeat, sway-a-little-with-your-honey music was the purity of the reed players in the “Waltz of the Flowers” (from “The Nutcracker”), and a solo violin section in “White Christmas” that could spark a fire in even the coldest heart.

And that doesn’t even account for Jubilant Sykes, the aptly named solo baritone whose “I Wonder As I Wander” had the velvety, deep musicianship that is only rarely handed out by heaven. Sykes has one of those mobile voices, the kind that can rise to the level of tenderness, then do a quick turnaround and be commanding, then twirl yet again into something even more miraculous.

Under the direction of the balletic hands of Elizabeth Patterson, the Cape Cod-based chorale Gloriae Dei Cantores performed high-style sacred music, such as “O Prince of Peace,” and loosened up to lead a full audience sing-along of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” “Jingle Bells” and more.

The two-hour concert featured several fun and friendly touches such as the brass section wearing fake reindeer antlers, the cellists wearing Santa hats, and Lockhart spiffing up his blacks in the second half of the program with a red vest, bow tie and socks. Augusta’s Mayor John Bridge made an appearance to welcome the group, and Gov. Angus King showed up wearing his own Santa hat while he gave a fatherly narration of “A Visit From St. Nicholas” (better known as “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”).

Even Santa showed up and strolled through a crowd of kids from age 1 to 92.

“I know you love it here in Maine,” Lockhart said in his best boyish voice, “but would you visit Boston this year, pretty please?”

“On one condition,” said Santa. “That you don’t wait another 17 years before you come back to Maine.”

Lockhart brought the Pops to Augusta to celebrate the city’s bicentennial. He brought the carols, the carolers and a whole lot of holiday joy. “We wish you luck, love and peace in 1998,” he told the audience, which rose to its feet more than once in appreciation for the gifts of the evening. But Lockhart also made a promise. He’ll be back again someday.