The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra was founded in 1977 by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Board of Trustees, and Erich Kunzel was named its conductor. Maestro Kunzel continues to lead the Pops today.

It was Maestro Max Rudolf who, in 1965, invited Erich Kunzel, then a young conductor on the faculty of Brown University, to join the orchestra. That October the Dartmouth graduate, who had been personal assistant to the great French conductor Pierre Monteux, conducted his first sold-out 8 O'Clock Pops concert. It was the beginning of a modern orchestral legend and, 40 years later, the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra under its first and only conductor is still performing for packed houses in Cincinnati's Music Hall and gaining new fans the world over through tour performances and its recordings on the Telarc label.

Cincinnati Pops At a Glance
 * The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra is part of the umbrella organization, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
* Known as “the Prince of Pops,” Erich Kunzel leads the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra.
* The Cincinnati Pops is one of the world’s most active classical pops ensembles, performing 22 subscription concerts during the Music Hall season and nine subscription concerts at Riverbend Music Center, the orchestra’s outdoor summer home.
* The Cincinnati Pops also are custodians of one of Cincinnati’s cherished outdoor musical traditions, the Concert in the Parks series.
* The Cincinnati Pops is one of very few U.S. orchestras with a commercial recording contract (with Telarc International, the Cleveland-based Grammy Award-winning label). They record two albums per year for Telarc.
* The Cincinnati Pops tours nationally and internationally and has appeared to enthusiastic audiences in New York’s Carnegie Hall, in Washington D.C. and in Japan and Taiwan.
* Approximately 340,000 people a year attend performances by the orchestra, with a per capita attendance that is one of the highest in the nation.

Broadcast Milestones
* An estimated 7 million people have viewed national telecasts of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra on PBS, including: Erich Kunzel and the Pops in “Patriotic Broadway” nationally aired June 2003 on PBS. Erich Kunzel and the Pops appeared on PBS live from Riverbend Music Center on July 4, 2000. Five other Pops programs have appeared on PBS.

Recording Milestones
* The CSO was the third U.S. orchestra to make a commercial recording (in 1917).
* Since 1980, 9.3 million recordings of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Pops have been sold on the Telarc label. (5.2 million sold in the United States; 4.1 million sold in other countries.)
* 131 total recordings are available by the CSO and Pops on various labels.
* The Cincinnati Pops has 97 available recordings, 79 of those on the Telarc label.
53 of the Pops recordings have appeared on the Billboard charts, a record unmatched by any other orchestra.
* The Pops’ Copland: Music of America won a Grammy in 1997, and four other Pops recordings have been nominated for Grammy Awards.