Arthur Fielder popularized classical musical. With record sales with his Pops Orchestra exceeding $50 million, and an appealingly light sound, classical music became more popular than ever because of his contribution to this genre.Arthur Fielder was born into a musical family, and took the necessary steps to make his own debut into the world of sound. Fielder was born in Boston in 1894 to Austrian-born violinist Emanuel Fielder. After studying violin with Willy Hess in Berlin, and chamber music with Ernst von Dohnanyi at the Royal Academy of Boston, he returned to the US and joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra as second violinist. In 1924 he formed the Boston Sinfonietta, a chamber music orchestra, in addition to organizing a series of free outdoor summer concerts at the Esplanade on the Charles River.Appointed the 18th conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, the former violinist found his strength with the baton. With his informal structure, he made the Pops Orchestra one of the best known orchestras in the country, making more recordings than any other orchestra. He created many well-known albums with RCA Victor, Polydor, and Deutsche Gramaphone records, and made the Guinness Book of World Records when his Esplanade concert, held on July 4, 1976, held the largest audience for a classical music concert, with over 400,000 in attendance.Fielder continued to make headlines with his unique take on classical music, appearing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, among others. In 1954, Boston dedicated the Foot Bridge on the Charles River to Fielder. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in 1977, and was given the Freedoms Foundation American Exemplar Award that same year. He died following surgery at the age of 85. He was honored years after his death, when his face appeared on the 1997 US postage stamp for the Legends of American Music series.