MANCHESTER – With the wave of a baton and the jingle of bells, Conductor Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops will present their Holiday Concert Dec. 17, at the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester.

Whether you’re a classic PBS-ser or a newbie Popster, Keith Lockhart and Co. promise a joyous evening of new and old holiday favorites, with a harmonic teetering toward freshness.

“That’s hitting the nail on the head,” Lockhart said. “That is the biggest challenge in doing concerts like this because it’s a balancing act between the traditional and variety.

If our audience came to a Boston Pops holiday concert and heard all music with which they were not familiar, they’d likely stand up and leave.”

Lockhart said with a covey of Christmas music arranged specifically for the Pops, the one steady change each year is the guest artist.

“This year we’ve been on the road with Rockapella,” he said. “And they add a real different vibe, a different beat and a different style and audiences are loving it. So I’m hoping that the audience in Manchester will as well.”

For those keeping score at home, it’s been 17 years since Lockhart first donned a Pops jacket, stepping into the shoes once worn by John Williams and the late Arthur Fiedler.

“I think it would be arrogant of me to say that I’ve completely forgotten the shoulders that you get to stand on in a job like this,” Lockhart said. “John, certainly, because he’s a living legend but Fielder more so, because he embedded the Pops as people know it. His shadow looms pretty large for someone who has been dead for 30 years.”

Lockhart said he can’t pinpoint a moment in time, “when people began recognizing me as a constant in the Pops and I could stop looking over my shoulder.”

Another creative segment of Lockhart and the Pops’ gig is recording.

“The nature of recording has changed drastically in the tenure that I’ve been here,” Lockhart said. “When I came here we were recording an album or two a year for RCA; now our recordings are self produced and most of the recordings we do these days are live recordings which changes the dynamic.”

I like the challenge of recording – there is a lot ofpressure in recording in the traditional sense. It’s this idea that you’re creating this perfect document or perfect version of something that you’re playing all the time.”

Live recording, he said, just feels more natural.

“Obviously, we’re still trying to create as much perfection as we can, but it is a performance for people and not the sterile nature of a recording booth. The move to live recording has made the recording process more of an organic part of what we are at our core, which is why performers perform before people.”

Lockhart has a short but impressive wish list of guests that he would like to collaborate with.

“There are certainly a couple of people in reference to the Fourth of July that I think would just be amazing,” he said. “Bruce Springsteen has always been pretty high up on that list because I think, frankly, if he did “Born in the USA” we could just go home for the evening.”

Lockhart also mentioned singer/songwriter Paul Simon and performance artist Laurie Anderson.

On a personal level, Lockhart sees a shift in music on the artistic landscape.

“When you look at the pop music scene, and you take off the most superficial level – the Britney Spears-level of pop music, and there are some really interesting things going on right now,” he said. “A move towards indie rock, singer/songwriters, more acoustically-based sounds. I actually think it’s a very interesting time because it’s gotten away from the head-banging stuff to a certain extent which is nice because as orchestral musicians, we have very little to offer the head-bangers. It’s just not what we do.”

Some of the Pops’ joint ventures have been with My Morning Jacket, The Decemberists, Death Cab for Cutie and Arcade Fire.

And as much as Lockhart has embraced alt-rock, he doesn’t feel that enough organizations – including his – are doing enough for the arts.

“Honestly, our role is not extensive as I would like it to be,” he said. “I think that’s something that we need to work on. These days, anyone involved in the arts who is not spending a lot of their time on outreach especially with the dissemination of so many school programs, is signing their own death warrant in terms of the future of something that we care about.

“What I’d like to do is find someone out there who is interested in using the Pops as a vehicle for outreach in places where they live.”

As for the holiday itself, Lockhart laughed and said, “I’ll be spending Christmas in Vermont with my wife and our 20- month-old and several other family members. I don’t go away too far because I have to work Christmas Eve.”