When it rains, it pours in Lexington’s classical music world.

Friday, we heard Scott Terrell was taking the baton for the Lexington Philharmonic. Monday, we learned Kayoko Dan will ascend the podium for the Central Kentucky Youth Orchestras. Today, we can report on a new guy will be conducting the University of Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, and he already has a job at UK.

Rich Brooks signs his commemorative bottles for fans at Keeneland on April 10. Photo by Charles Bertram | LexGo.

Head football coach Rich Brooks will borrow the baton from orchestra director John Narolillo to conduct the UK Symphony for a performance of John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever at the beginning of Friday night’s otherwise all-Beethoven concert.

The guest conductor gig is part of the University of Kentucky Symphony’s status as the beneficiary of  this year’s Maker’s Mark commemorative bottle for UK athletics. The bottle features Brooks likeness, in recognition of his UK Symphony-like success the last three seasons, and proceeds are going to the orchestra’s educational efforts.

The idea came up, Nadolillo said, when he and Brooks were dipping the bottles in blue and white wax.

“I said, ‘Why don’t you come conduct the orchestra,’” Nardolillo recalled. “He said, ‘OK, what do you want me to conduct?’ I said, ‘How about Beethoven’s Ninth?’ He said, ‘Fine. And you can coach the LSU game.’”

For those unfamiliar with both professions, those would be comparable tasks.

Nardolillo, by the way, will conduct the rest of Friday’s concert, which will include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 “Choral,” featuring the UK choirs directed by Jefferson Johnson and Lori Hetzel, and Symphony No. 1.

Nardolillo says the orchestra stands to receive $1.2 million from the project, sponsored by Maker’s Mark and the Keeneland Foundation, which will go into an endowment fund for educational outreach programs.