By Andrew Firestone

Somerville music students had a substitute teacher this week: Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart performed a special set Monday at Somerville High School.

High school students and students in grades four through eight who receive free music lessons in string instruments, were in wonder as Grammy winning musicians took the stage, culminating with Lockhart.

Talking about his introduction into music, Lockhart said that his parents made sure he got to play the piano, and told students to savor the experience his family could not afford during such tough times.

“I try to play as well as I can,” said Lockhart, “because if I’m going to tell people how to play, it wouldn’t  be fair if I didn’t know how to play myself.”

Acclaimed Haitian violinist Daniel Roumain also performed. He confronted the prejudices of the audience head-on. “Only girls play the violin,” said Roumain, remembering the taunts of his friends when he was young. “I wanted my violin to sound like a guitar,” he said, proceeding to pluck the strings with flamenco gusto. “I wanted my violin to sound like a turntable,” and scratches straight out of a Beastie Boys track emanated through the auditorium.

What followed was a soulful performance of Roumain’s original “Our Country” a romantic twist on the classic “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” joined by the ersatz Lockhart in  a rare piano performance.

Roumain stole the show with a frenzied string performance accompanied by a quintet of Pops performers. After finishing, Roumain and Lockhart fielded questions from the students, where Roumain said his lengthy dreadlocks were 11 years-old and he curled them every day.

Roumain and the rest of the Pops were invited by Rick Saunders, the music Director of Somerville Public Schools. “The students seemed electrified,” said Gretchen Kinder, coordinator of Research and Development for the Somerville Public Schools. “The goal of introducing these students to alternative ways of performing classical music was definitely accomplished.”

The reaction of the students to the whirlwind classically-infused rock-hop performance was rapturously positive. “I don’t want you to cheer,” said Roumain, “I want you to roar.” And roar they did.