Philly Pops season announcement: Beatles, Elvis, Ella and Louis, 'Les Mis' and more

For its 39th season, the Philly Pops continues its successful formula, presenting highlights from pop, rock, jazz, and Broadway. The roster includes tributes to the Beatles, Elvis, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Fleetwood Mac, and Les Misérables.

Designing a season from the vast pop genre represents a juggling act for Michael Krajewski, in his third season as music director. (He has just signed on for three more years.) Five shows must offer familiar fare to an audience that relates to music from previous generations. The Pops' jazz nucleus and symphonic wraparound also involves creating new arrangements to showcase the flexibility of its 65 musicians.

Krajewski, who also leads Pops orchestras in Houston, Atlanta, and Jacksonville, said he was still thrilled by this opportunity.

"The Philly Pops is, by far, the best orchestra I work with," Krajewski said. "They are the best musicians for this kind of music because they can play in any style."

The 39th season begins in October with "ELVIS: The King's Songbook," with vocalists Allison Blackwell (who sang in the recent Carole King show at the Pops) and Dave Bennett. Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' iconic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, the Beatles homage quartet Classical Mystery Tour will visit in February 2017.

Later that month, David Charles Abell, a conductor of opera as well as Broadway, and familiar from the last three Christmas shows, returns to lead music from shows he has conducted in Europe, including Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, Into the Woods, and Wicked.

The glorious duet recordings by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong represent a convergence of jazz and the American popular song. In 2017, Fitzgerald's centenary, the Pops will celebrate those duets. On March 31, 2017, jazz trumpeter Byron Stripling and singer Marva Hicks will step into those enormous shoes.

Rock deserves its place, too, and a Pops Rock show wraps the season in May 2017. Hits from three famed bands - the Eagles, Journey, and Fleetwood Mac - will get the symphonic treatment. They sound, said Krajewski, "better than we remember them."

The current Pops season still has three events after this weekend's Billy Joel show. A one-night show March 26 at the Prince Theater, and Krajewski returns in April for a Broadway show and "Cirque Goes to the Movies" in May.