ACADEMY AWARD AND GRAMMY® AWARD-WINNING SUPERSTAR LIONEL RICHIE TO PERFORM ON THE “BOSTON POPS FIREWORKS SPECTACULAR,” AN ENTERTAINMENT SPECIAL HOSTED BY EMMY AWARD WINNER MICHAEL CHIKLIS AND FEATURING THE BOSTON POPS LED BY KEITH LOCKHART, TO BE BROADCAST LIVE MONDAY, JULY 4, ON THE CBS TELEVISION NETWORK
Academy Award and GRAMMY® Award-winning superstar Lionel Richie will perform on the BOSTON POPS FIREWORKS SPECTACULAR, an entertainment special to be broadcast live from the Charles River Esplanade in Boston, Monday, July 4 (10:00-11:00 PM, live ET/delayed PT) on the CBS Television Network. As previously announced, Emmy Award-winning actor and Boston-area native Michael Chiklis (“The Shield”) will host the special.
Richie will perform some of his biggest hits with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra under the direction of conductor Keith Lockhart.
The BOSTON POPS FIREWORKS SPECTACULAR, now in its 38th year, is the orchestra’s annual free outdoor Fourth of July concert and is sponsored by Liberty Mutual Group, one of America’s leading insurers, offering auto, home and life insurance for individuals and families, as well as a variety of insurance products and services for businesses. The entire concert will be broadcast in HD (high definition), courtesy of Liberty Mutual Group. In addition, the final 20 minutes of the broadcast, featuring the spectacular fireworks display, will be presented commercial-free by Liberty Mutual Group.
An international superstar whose career has spanned more than 40 years, Lionel Richie is a music legend whose recorded legacy includes timeless classic hits and multi-platinum best-selling albums. His many career accomplishments include five GRAMMY® Awards, an Academy Award, 11 American Music Awards, five People’s Choice Awards and a “World Music Lifetime Achievement Award,” as well as a much-deserved Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The co-founder of The Commodores at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute in 1967, Richie experienced his first taste of success after the group signed to Motown Records in 1971, becoming one of the most popular U.S. funk bands with “Machine Gun” and “Brick House,” before creating a slew of future slow jam Richie-penned classics with “Easy,” “Three Times a Lady” and “Sail On.” Richie began working outside the Commodores in 1980, after Kenny Rogers’ hit version of “Lady” led to him producing the singer’s 1981 album, Share Your Love.  His 1981 chart-topping duet with Diana Ross, “Endless Love,” was Motown’s most successful single and further fueled Richie’s solo ambitions.  In 1982, the release of his self-titled solo quadruple-platinum Motown debut set Richie on a record-breaking path to global superstardom, followed by 1983’s 10-million-selling Can’t Slow Down, which won a Grammy for Album of the Year, and 1986’s massively-successful “Dancing on the Ceiling.” After a period of reflection and personal growth, Richie returned with Back to Front (1992), Louder than Words (1996), Time (1998), Renaissance (2001), Encore (2003), The Definitive Collection, a worldwide multi-million-selling retrospective, Just for You (2004) and Coming Home (2006), in which Richie worked with producers such as Jermaine Dupri, Raphael Saadiq, Dallas Austin and Sean Garrett). Richie demonstrated his ability to be a bridge between the classic soul and pop sound of the ’70s and ’80s and today’s vibrant music scene. His latest release, Just Go, finds Richie working with some of today’s hottest hitmakers, including Tricky Stewart & The Dream, Stargate, Akon (a hitmaker in his own right) and famed GRAMMY-winning producer David Foster, for an album with a decided musical twist brimming with universal, global appeal and a timeless collection of contemporary material.
Michael Chiklis, a native of Lowell, Massachusetts, began entertaining his family with celebrity imitations when he was just 5 years old. He has been acting professionally since earning his Equity card at age 13 while appearing in regional theater, and later graduated Boston University School of Performing Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Universally known for his portrayal of Detective Vic Mackey on the groundbreaking series, “The Shield,” Chiklis has earned numerous awards and accolades for his performance, including the Television Critics Association award for Individual Achievement in Drama in 2002, the Golden Globe and Emmy Awards for Best Actor in a Drama Series in 2003 and the declaration from TIME magazine that Chiklis “gave TV’s performance of the year.”  In addition to his critically-acclaimed acting on “The Shield,” he also assumed the role of producer and director for many of the show’s episodes. Chiklis’s other television credits include starring roles in the series “No Ordinary Family” (which he also helped produce), “The Commish,” “Daddio,” the television movie, “The Three Stooges,” and guest-starring roles in “Murphy Brown” on the Network, “Miami Vice,” “L.A. Law” and “Seinfeld.” After his role on “The Commish” wrapped, Chiklis went to Broadway, starring in the one-man show, Defending the Caveman. A notable actor on the silver screen, Chiklis has starred in the films “Fantastic Four” and “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” as Ben Grimm aka Marvel Comics’ popular “The Thing,” “Eagle Eye,” “Rise,” The Tax Man,” “Last Request,” “Body and Soul” and the controversial “Wired,” in which he played John Belushi, a role he auditioned for days after his college graduation. Chiklis recently launched his music career, and he and his rock group, The Michael Chiklis Band, have released two singles, “‘Til I Come Home” and “Make Me High,” which are currently available on iTunes and most other digital platforms. The Michael Chiklis Band is currently making its debut album via Extravaganza Productions, Chikils’s new production company, which is developing a number of projects for film, television and music.
Having led more than 1,300 Boston Pops concerts, Keith Lockhart is now in his 17th season as Boston Pops Conductor. Â He has made 70 television shows, led 34 national and four overseas tours with the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra and recorded 11 albums. Â His tenure has been marked by a dramatic increase in touring, the orchestra’s first GRAMMY nominations, the first major network national broadcast (on CBS Television) of the Fourth of July spectacular from the Esplanade and the release of the Boston Pops’ first self-produced and self-distributed recordings, now numbering four: Sleigh Ride, America, Oscar & Tony and The Red Sox Album. Â He also led the Pops for Chris Botti’s In Boston CD and DVD, which received multiple GRAMMY nominations earlier this year.
Now in its 126th year, The Boston Pops has a rich and storied history that began with its founding in 1885.  The Boston Pops Orchestra has distinguished itself as the founder of and leader in its genre, presenting the best of a wide variety of music from jazz to pop, indie rock to big band, film music to the great American songbook, and Broadway to classical. Though Arthur Fiedler’s nearly 50-year tenure as Pops conductor (1930-1979) established the Boston Pops as a national icon, Conductor Laureate John Williams (1980-1993) and present-day conductor Keith Lockhart (1995-present) have shepherded the orchestra through three decades of tumultuous change in the world of music. The Boston Pops, “America’s Orchestra,” performs for an audience of nearly 900,000 people annually in Boston, across the country and around the world, and reaches millions more through its recordings and television broadcasts. For more information, visit http://www.bostonpops.org/.
Boston 4 Productions (http://www.july4th.org/) has produced this annual event for the past 38 years, for which approximately 800,000 people pack Boston’s Charles River Esplanade. In addition, more than seven million people across the country and the globe join the Boston Pops through the annual televised broadcast, sponsored by Liberty Mutual Group.
The BOSTON POPS FIREWORKS SPECTACULAR broadcast and live event will be produced by Boston 4 Productions and White Cherry Entertainment, in collaboration with IMG Media. Boston 4 Productions’ David G. Mugar is executive producer. Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner will produce the national telecast; Michael Mathis of IMG Media and Sheryl Bourisk for WBZ-TV will produce the local telecast seen on WBZ-TV Boston. Glenn Weiss will direct both the local and Network broadcasts.
RATING:Â To Be Announced