Boston Pops to Play Brookline Park This Weekend

For the first time in years, maybe forever, the Boston Pops will cross the Muddy River and put on a free outdoor show in Brookline this Sunday, bringing a brass quintet to Olmsted Park to play a variety of Civil War-era military marches, old-time ragtime and turn-of the-century jazz.

As part of its 125th anniversary celebration this summer, the Pops have scheduled a variety of free outdoor concerts at venues around Boston, including the Boston Common, City Hall Plaza and Pinebank at Jamaica Pond. But this is the first time this summer the Pops have crossed over to the Brookline side of the Emerald Necklace, playing just north of Leverett Pond at Allerton Overlook.

Organizers plan to close down a portion of the upper path at Allerton Overlook, part of Boston's Emerald Necklace park system designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, and set up a temporary stage. The arrangement creates a natural amphitheatre with views of Leverett Pond, according to Parks and Open Space Director Erin Gallentine, who worked with the Emerald Necklace Conservancy to bring the Pops show to Brookline.

"The landscape at Olmsted Park has undergone, over the years, a full restoration, so you really can come to the overlook and see one of Olmsted's designs restored and maintained," Gallentine said. "It's a great place to experience what Olmsted would have envisioned for the parks."

The Parks and Open Space Division has hosted a variety of musical events at Allerton Overlook in the past, most recently for the Sounds and Scenes concert series in 2008. But Gallentine said she doesn't remember the storied Pops every playing Olmsted Park, or Brookline at all, in the past.

Spokesmen for the Pops weren't able to say whether the orchestra had ever held an event in Brookline before. The full Pops orchestra typically plays at Boston's Symphony Hall and the Hatch Shell on the Esplanade.

Gallentine said she's already encouraging the orchestra to make the Olmsted Park shows part of their regular summer schedule.

"I'm hopeful we'll be able to do more of this and use the Allerton Overlook and Olmstead Park for people to be able to come and listen to music an the water's edge," she said.