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The No Name Pops orchestra, soon to be known as the latter-day Philly Pops, has named its first music director: Christopher Dragon, who currently holds conductor positions with the Wyoming Symphony, Colorado Symphony and Greensboro Symphony in North Carolina. He begins his role in Philadelphia in July.
A native of Perth, Australia, Dragon has conducted orchestras around the world with credits ranging from standard classical repertoire, soundtrack music live-to-picture and new music. He has worked with violinist Joshua Bell, Broadway and film singer Cynthia Erivo (“Wicked”), and RZA of the seminal hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan.
Dragon, 34, came to the United States in 2015 to take a job at the Colorado Symphony in Denver, which he considers the home base of his wide-ranging conducting career. He has performed once in Philadelphia, last November as guest conductor with the No Name Pops.
Dragon said he wants to bring a contemporary energy to pops music.
“In my opinion, orchestral pops around the country isn’t meeting the modern-day audience expectation. I think a modern-day pops orchestra can be much more versatile,” he said. “We’re going to be able to push the boundaries of what people expect an orchestra to be doing.”
The executive director of the No Name Pops, Matthew Koveal, was once a colleague of Dragon’s when Koveal also worked at the Colorado Symphony. He said Dragon is right for the job because he is able to take on a range of music styles with equal rigor and enthusiasm.
“Chris has this ‘do whatever’ attitude,” Koveal said. “He’s totally down to try new things and to realize that the Pop’s idiom needs to progress in order to be successful.”
The No Name Pops formed two years ago by musicians who had left the Philly Pops as its parent organization, Encore Series, Inc., began to collapse under bankruptcy and lawsuits. Recently No Name acquired the copyrighted name “Philly Pops” by permission of the estate of the late conductor Peter Nero, but it has not yet begun to use that name.