In the entertainment industry, there are a lot of formulas: formulas for sitcoms, formulas for boy bands, formulas for country music songs, formulas for date movies and formulas for pop stars. The same old recipe keeps getting dished up, year after year.

You can't really blame the big-league entertainment executives because, whether we want to admit it or not, formulas sell. They sell well, quickly and easily. You don't have to educate an audience if what they're listening to is the same type of song that hit it big last year. You don't have to spend marketing dollars to convince people that a movie is worth seeing if it's your standard formula script.

Take, for example, the date-night formula. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back—it's familiar and comfortable (no shocking plot twists to make your blood pressure surge). But after a while it gets boring—and, most of all, predictable.

  Now, the Honolulu Symphony Pops can never be called boring. And “;predictable”; is not in our vocabulary. That's why it's such a pleasure to team up with the musicians who will join us this weekend—the indefinable and unique Bela Fleck & the Flecktones. They're just about as far from a formulaic group as Kauai is from the mainland. Call them bluegrass, jazz or world beat, they haven't conformed to the industry's narrow view of what successful musicians can be. That's what makes them so amazing—and so worth hearing live.

Bela Fleck (yes, he's named after Bartok) is known as a banjo virtuoso around the world. He's won eight Grammy Awards, including one in the Best Classical Crossover category. Simply put, Bela's not your grandpa's banjo player. He has joined up with three immensely talented musicians to create the Flecktones: FutureMan (Roy El), Jeff Coffin and Victor Wooten. Together they have created music that refuses to be pigeonholed into categories or labeled by the industry.

The result is amazing: a one-of-a-kind blend of bluegrass, pop, jazz and world music, with an essence of classical. The music they'll perform is too hard to describe—you just have to listen, and there's not a doubt in my mind that you'll enjoy every note.

The Flecktones entertain more than 500,000 fans each year, and their Honolulu debut is way overdue. Better yet, they've just released a holiday album called “;Jingle All the Way”; which they'll share with us this weekend.

The holiday spirit is everywhere at the Pops these days, and we'll open the show with some special holiday music. We'd be proud to welcome you to the audience this weekend as we present a show that is beyond compare.