About FPO
Firebird Pops Orchestra is a nonprofit, community pops orchestra founded in July, 2020 during the Coronavirus pandemic to provide hope in the arts “rising from the ashes” of a devastated industry, and debuted virtually in August, 2020 with nearly 60 musicians performing a medley of music from Harry Potter. The premiere performance received almost 40,000 views and praise from 7News, MuggleNet.com, and Nerdist.
About the Music Director
Brendan J. Kenney (FPO Founder/Music Director) is a music director, conductor, and accompanist in the Greater Boston area with fifteen years’ experience, primarily in Musical Theatre.
Our Leadership
Read about our Board of Directors and the background each brings to the organization of the orchestra. If you’re interested in serving on the board, be sure to contact us!
Our Leadership
Read about our Board of Directors and the background each brings to the organization of the orchestra. If you’re interested in serving on the board, be sure to contact us!
Contact Us
If you are an audience member with a comment, press/media looking to get in touch, an agent looking for more information on booking, a school district looking for virtual guidance, or anyone else, we’d love to hear from you!
About the Music Director
Brendan J. Kenney, Founder/Music DirectorBrendan J. Kenney (FPO Founder/Music Director) is a music director, conductor, and accompanist in the Greater Boston area with fifteen years’ experience, primarily in Musical Theatre. Brendan’s love of conducting surfaced in High School, particularly when he opted not to walk with his graduating class so he could “guest conduct” the wind ensemble’s performance of Pomp & Circumstance. Since then, he has had dozens of productions under his baton at educational, community, and community children’s levels – and had the honor of conducting the centennial season opener for The Concord Players in November, 2019.
In 2010, Brendan founded the “Call for Pit Orchestra Musicians” initiative to help raise awareness of the importance of budgeting for and utilizing the full orchestration for Musical Theatre. To date, the flagship Boston branch has over 3500 members with additional branches launched across the country and in Canada. The CFPOM initiative was also born of Brendan’s desire to start a summer/holiday community Pops orchestra, and the Firebird Pops is the result – ten years later!
For almost a decade, Brendan was a full-time Organist/Cantor/Choir Director for Catholic Churches, with a particular concentration on the Traditional Latin Mass and Gregorian Chant/Renaissance Polyphony. Between his church career and musical theatre career, he could be found playing, analyzing, coaching, and conducting music across the span of thousands of years in a single day. Despite a recent career change, he still occasionally substitutes as a cantor or organist alongside his full-time job as a web developer for a tech corporation headquartered in the Seaport District of Boston.
Outside of music direction and conducting, Brendan has been seen on stage in “The Secret Garden” (Captain Albert Lennox), “Grey Gardens” (Gould), and “Songs for a New World” (Man 2), as well as making guest appearances with the “MIT Artists Beyond the Desk” program. Additionally, he has been seen performing at the Orpheum Theater in Boston singing backup for Sarah Brightman’s Hymn tour, as well as the SNHU Arena (Manchester, NH) and the Koussevitzky Music Shed at Tanglewood singing backup for Josh Groban’s Bridges tour. He studies voice with Kim Lamoureux out of Middleton, MA and competed in the 2019 NATS Adult Musical Theatre division with high marks.
Our Leadership
Brendan J. Kenney, President/Executive Director
Brendan could not be more excited to be launching this brand new, cutting-edge orchestra for musicians to perform both during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. Together with the board of directors, he is looking forward to bring the ensemble to new heights with even more innovative performances!
Tom Cox, Treasurer
Tom is thrilled to be a part of Firebird, and can’t wait to see what amazing things we’re able to do with this new and innovative organization.
In addition to his involvement with Firebird, Tom is a music educator and freelance musician based out of Salem, MA. As a featured soloist with the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in Edinburgh, Scotland, Tom’s performances have been viewed by TV audiences around the world on the BBC. Locally, Tom has played flute and piccolo with the North Shore Philharmonic Orchestra, and can often be seen – or at least heard – playing multiple woodwinds in pit orchestras throughout New England.
Jeri Sykes, Secretary
Jeri Sykes has played woodwinds in pit orchestras for hundreds of theatrical productions, and written arrangements and original music for theatre, revues, and cabaret shows. Jeri has worked as a performer/arranger with the California bands Lawsuit, Agony Aunts, and Preoccupied Pipers. She also performs as a jazz saxophonist and classical clarinetist. She is an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music, teaching jazz arranging, musical theatre orchestration, and technical theatre production. She is one of the founding faculty of the Berklee Theater Arts Collaborative.