The Harvard Pops gave a delightful baseball-themed concert tonight, including Boston’s own baseball favorites like Shipping Up to Boston and Sweet Caroline.  “Sporchestra” commentators narrated the event, providing (for example) play-by-play analysis of Beethoven’s 5th symphony:

The brass section has the theme… and now the basses have it… and now nobody has the theme!  The audience can’t find the theme!  Wait… what’s this… he’s introduced a new theme!

Mengruo Yang performed a mesmerizing and technically impressive solo on flute in Fantasie Brillante from Carmen (performed here, perhaps even more impressively, by 7 year-old “Emma“).

Megan Savage narrated the poem Casey at the Bat as Adam Lathram brought it to life.  The Boston Pops had included this poem in their own baseball-themed concert last year, but I honestly liked conductor Allen Feinstein’s original music from tonight’s performance better.

My favorite line of the evening came when Adam Lathram was about to start a rigorous training routine for his upcoming bullfight in a montage set to the music of Rocky:

You’d better get a move on.  You only have 163 measures.

All this begs the question: where were you while all this was going on?