The band’s former drummer, Stewart Copeland, will be in town this spring to accept the Meadows Award and lead the Meadows Symphony Orchestra's 31st annual Meadows at the Meyerson in an orchestral performance of Police Deranged for Orchestra with collegiate musicians.
For Tom Keck, director of the Division of Music at SMU Meadows, this experience is a dream come true. Keck is an avowed fan of The Police and was able to see the band’s famous 1983–84 Synchronicity tour as a young teen — a pop culture moment when The Police metaphorically handed their title of “biggest band in the world” over to some scrappy Irish upstarts called U2.
“As a drummer, you were either a fan of Stewart Copeland or [Rush’s] Neil Peart; that’s who you listened to,” Keck says with a laugh.
Keck taught at Utah Valley University in 2022, when Copeland was touring the world with the Police Deranged. Unfortunately, he had to miss the Utah show as it was the day of his move to Dallas. Yet, just like the meaning of the band’s most famous album, his new gig in Dallas had a synchronic set of circumstances that allowed Copeland to come to him.
It turned out SMU's adjunct assistant professor of drumset studies, John Bryant, had a personal connection to the drummer, and a casual conversation with Keck sparked the idea of bringing him to the University to accept the Meadows Award (a 41-year-old honorarium given to an artist at the pinnacle of a distinguished career) along with an artistic residency.
"He said, 'I'll call him up and see if he would do it,'" Keck recalls Bryant saying. "He's only done this show with professional orchestras, but having John on board to tell him it will be a good thing, Stewart was into it. It was also a time when the university was asking if the Meadows at the Meyerson could freshen up its programming a little bit and make it slightly different. It all worked out, and the university was eager to see all the pieces fit together."
Every Little Thing He Does Is Magic
In 2012, Copeland premiered his composition Gemelan D'Drum with the Dallas Symphony, and he's accomplished in far more ways than pop stardom. A seven-time Grammy Award winner, he has scored over 70 movies (including Rumble Fish and Wall Street), composed soundtracks for TV and video games and even written opera. The drummer's busy agenda in Dallas, April 15–17, will include working closely with students in composition and film while rehearsing with the student orchestra for the April 16 performance.
"He'll make suggestions on music for their films or share his immediate thoughts and ideas and lay down a few minutes of music for them," says Keck. "It'll be a pretty packed few days. [For the concert] we're hoping to fill the Meyerson and that fans will drive down from Oklahoma and drive up from Austin. It will be a pop concert with all the standards you want to hear. l have a doctorate in conducting, so I'll also get a chance to be on stage, which will be great."
Keck hopes the residency will also be an opportunity for a new generation to understand just how significant The Police's catalog continues to be.
"I believe there's a certain revival in the popularity of The Police, but other students are being introduced to what their place was in the 1980s and how significant they were," he says. "It was lightning in the bottle for a while. And Stewart, more than other band members, spread himself into new areas and explored different parts of the music business. At their root, they're three very talented musicians, which I think will be one of the main lessons students will take away from the experience."
Of course, the main goal of staging such an illustrious concert is to raise funds through ticket sales for students to attend the University who otherwise couldn't. Wags may term SMU the "Southern Millionaire's University,” but Keck says the institution wants talented young adults of all backgrounds to have the opportunity for the best education in the arts.
"The whole point is to raise scholarship funds," he says. "We really want to create opportunities for students who might not otherwise be able to attend SMU."
The 31st annual Meadows at the Meyerson benefit concert featuring Stewart Copeland’s Police Deranged for Orchestra is April 16 at the Meyerson Symphony Center, 2301 Flora St. Tickets are available at smu.universitytickets.com.
