Garrison Keillor and Bugs Bunny will make their first visits to the Cincinnati Pops in the 2001-02 season. The orchestra will latch onto the salsa craze with a hot Latin CD and make a swing disc with Manhattan Transfer and jazz guitarist John Pizzarelli.

        “We're giving a new look to the 8 o'clock series,” says Cincinnati Pops conductor Erich Kunzel, who begins his 36th season with the orchestra next year. “You have to remember that young people are very busy, and can only pick and choose when to go. So we hope a few of these things will attract them.”

        The Pops is betting that new stars — plus a new, 7 p.m. start time on Sundays — will appeal to a younger crowd. Subscribers' average age is in the mid-60s.

        Mr. Kunzel, 65, who says he is cutting back his schedule everywhere, will conduct just five of the eight programs next year.
       

Prairie Home

        The Pops will present three prepackaged shows.

        The season opens with radio personality and storyteller Garrison Keillor, author and host of A Prairie Home Companion, who brings his own conductor, Philip Brunelle (music director of the Minnesota Opera), Sept. 7-9.

        “I realize it's unusual that I'm not conducting the first concert,” Mr. Kunzel says. “We have tried for many years to get (Mr. Keillor). He is not a man who does a lot with orchestras.”

        Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck will take a bow Oct. 13-14 with conductor George Daugherty in “Bugs Bunny on Broadway.” The show will present classic Warner Bros. animated films, such as The Rabbit of Seville, Rhapsody Rabbit and What's Opera Doc? while the orchestra plays their musical scores.

        The third packaged show (March 3) is Riders in the Sky, with singing cowboys named Ranger Doug, Woody Paul and Too Slim, accompanied by Joey, the Cowpolka King.
       

Olympic quest
        Mr. Kunzel will make his first season appearance Oct. 26-28. He'll be joined by the Indiana University Singing Hoosiers for highlights from their two PBS specials and five Telarc albums together.

        Grammy-winning gospel singer Sandi Patty, who sang in the Pops' 1999 Thanksgiving TV special, will return for a holiday show (Dec. 14-16). The May Festival Chorus will join in the seasonal favorites.

        Mr. Kunzel might try something different for his Winter Olympics tribute (Feb. 3 and 10), to hail the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games. Besides presenting members of the Cincinnati Gymnastics Academy (directed by Mary Lee Tracy), aerialist Alexander Streltsov and acrobats Darek & Jarek, he is trying to figure out how to build an ice rink on Music Hall's stage. Stay tuned.

        The Pops will record two albums for Telarc with music from its two concluding programs. On April 19-21, Manhattan Transfer will join Mr. Pizzarelli and Mr. Kunzel for a program of swing classics, such as “Satin Doll” and “Tuxedo Junction.”

        The season will end May 31-June 2 with Cuban-American trumpeter Arturo Sandoval and the Arturo Sandoval Band, with Ballet Espanol and salsa dancer Alec Lazo.
       

Waiting for Paavo

        The recordings are a decrease from the Pops' usual three, something that “just worked out that way,” Mr. Kunzel says. He adds that recording schedules will be finalized “once Paavo gets here.”

        Paavo Jarvi, music director-designate of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, from which most Pops players are drawn, begins his first season in September (see the CSO season at Cincinnati.Com: keyword symphony).

        The Pops, which has gone to the Far East three times, is not planning any immediate tours. Instead, Mr. Kunzel is in a holding pattern during the CSO's transition to new leadership.

        “Everything is in limbo at this point,” he says. “We just spent a lot of money to get the orchestra to Europe for (outgoing music director) Jesus Lopez-Cobos' farewell. We should stimulate the world to look at Paavo. So I think it's very important that he travel and record with the orchestra.”

        Cincinnati Pops subscriptions are $66.25-$296. 381-3300 or cincinnatipops.org.

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