Third Time’s the Charm?

We’re hardly slavish admirers of Keith Lockhart, and it seems that our readership agrees. But we’d be remiss in our gossip-spreading duties if we didn’t report that Lockhart recited wedding vows for the third time yesterday, marrying Emiley Zalesky, an assistant Massachusetts attorney general. Congratulations, you crazy kids.

The couple met when the conductor saved the lawyer from a bad date back in 2005. Here’s how their meeting was described in the New York Times announcement:

Ms. Zalesky met Mr. Lockhart in 2005 at a restaurant in Boston. He was enjoying a postconcert meal. She was in distress.

“I was on a date that was getting worse by the minute,” she said. She compensated by befriending her waiter, who “leaned over to me at one point and said, ‘Do you know who that is sitting next to you?’”

It seems odd that Zalesky shouldn’t have known who Lockhart was, since his face is on posters all over the city.

. . . When she suggested complimenting the renowned conductor, her date vetoed the idea. But she took that as a challenge. “I said hello in part because my date told me not to,” she admitted.

To her surprise, Mr. Lockhart got up from his table and engaged her in conversation. “He didn’t seem to want to stop talking to me,” she said.

We can’t even imagine what kind of pipsqueak Zalesky’s initial date must have been to not tell Lockhart to stop macking on his date while he was sitting right there. Who paid for Zalesky’s dinner? We hope it was Lockhart.

But how does the conductor feel about his new bride?

“When Emiley and I started spending time together, for the first time in a long time I had an idea of where home was and where I wanted to go back to.”

Lockhart and Zalesky bought a physical home together in April, which fueled the speculation the two would marry. Here’s hoping that Lockhart’s third marriage is the one that lasts.