Boston Pops

Music will fill the airwaves of KCET Channel 28 on June 20 as the public television station airs five programs ranging from the Boston Pops to jazz and country. "Evening at Pops" kicks off the agenda at 8 p.m., with Ray Charles, Cleo Laine, Oscar Peterson and Andy Williams joining the Boston Pops Orchestra. That will be followed at 9 p.m. by "Jacksonville Jazz Festival." At 10 p.m., Rita Moreno will host "Latin Music Special," a history of Latin music in the United States. Then at 11 p.m.

Boston Pops music director John Williams has been forced by illness to cancel his appearance with the Pops Esplanade Orchestra at Hollywood Bowl on Sunday night. The program will be led by John Mauceri, who has already filled in for Williams at the Pops' previous four concerts on the current tour. According to a spokesman for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, sponsor of the Sunday event, Williams suffered a "serious intestinal infection" and was hospitalized for a brief period.

A 1 1/2-hour band concert, part of a summer series to commemorate Golden West College's 30th anniversary, will begin at 5:30 p.m. Sunday in the campus amphitheater. The Golden West College Symphonic Band will play a variety of styles, "from Boston Pops to classical, from big band to musical," conductor Thomas Hernandez said. Concert-goers may bring lawn chairs and picnic baskets, college officials said. Parking and concert admission are free.

The opening of the Newport Beach headquarters of Boston Safe Deposit & Trust Co.'s West Coast private banking services in May was a posh affair, replete with food, drink and a string quintet from the Boston Pops Orchestra. But the recent opening of the firm's Los Angeles office, the fourth Boston Safe office in the state, was an extravaganza featuring a 66-piece orchestra playing--what else?--Boston Pops tunes as some 700 guests dined and drank in the lobby office downtown.

Ready to visit some of the nation's splashiest July 4 celebrations? As always, the best views of major events are often from the comfort of your couch. Besides, the bathrooms will be a lot cleaner (let's hope). Here's a rundown of some of today's national celebrations and when they will air: Let's start in Boston. One of the biggest shows of the evening will be the annual Boston Pops concert, broadcast on CBS and hosted by Grammy Award-winning singer Jennifer Hudson and Emmy Award-winner Michael Chiklis.

BRIEFLY: Keith Lockhart, new conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, will lead "Liberation 95," the musical-multimedia commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust, Nov. 13 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Music Center. The musical score for "Liberation 95" is being created by composer Meir Finkelstein. Among the participants will be actor Billy Crystal, television personalities Bob Saget and Martin Bookspan and members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, L.A.

Former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite plans to trade in his typewriter for a baton, at least temporarily. Cronkite will conduct the Boston Pops Esplanade Orchestra in a Pops by the Sea Concert Sunday on the village green in Hyannis in Cape Cod. Conductor Harry Ellis Dickson will assist Cronkite at the concert entitled "That's the Way It Was--That's The Way It Is," referring to the phrase he used to sign off his nightly broadcast.

Kids, Pops and cops headline the weekend television scene. Tonight at 8 on KCAL Channel 9, Tim Reid and Daphne Maxwell Reid host "Every Kid's a Winner," a collection of profiles of teachers, parents and community leaders involved in the effort to improve the nutrition and fitness of children. Bobby McFerrin performs his a cappella version of Vivaldi's Concerto for Two Mandolins and leads the Boston Pops orchestra in a rendition of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 on Channel 28 Sunday at 8 p.m.