Knoxville Symphony Orchestra – Gershwin’s An American in Paris
Thursday/Friday, September 17/18, 7:30PM
Tennessee Theatre, 604 S. Gay Street
Tickets
The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra opens its 2026-27 Masterworks season this week with a pair of concerts focused on those that influenced—and continue to influence—American music. KSO music director Aram Demirjian has chosen four works that represent both the past and future of the diverse voice that is the American musical environment.
Check out this short video for Maestro Demirjian’s take on what to expect on this concert.
NICKY SOHN: Is This the Happiest Place on Earth?
First heard by KSO audiences last May as part of the Chamber Series, the Korean American contemporary composer Nicky Sohn draws on experiences of her childhood and the cultural references that weave through her music. In our review of Sohn, we offered that her music was “…simultaneously surprising and challenging in its stylistic approach, Sohn’s work is remarkably Western in a carefree sort of way, but with moments of Asian influence that drift in and out of the narrative.”
DVORAK: Cello Concerto in B minor, Opus 104
Cellist Sterling Elliott joins Maestro Demirjian and the KSO for Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, a work that was composed during the Czech composer’s period in the United States while he was serving as director of the National Conservatory of Music.
WILLIAM GRANT STILL: Symphony No. 1 (“Afro-American“)
This work lands solidly at the intersection of the traditional symphonic idiom and 1930s blues influences that speak volumes of a compelling mixture of black culture and the European traditions. A highlight of this performance will be KSO Poet-in-Residence Rhea Carmon who will read poetry by Paul Laurence Dunbar, writing that was an inspiration for Still while he was composing this work.
GERSHWIN: An American in Paris
Inspired by a trip to Europe and the sights and sounds he heard in Paris, Gershwin completed the work in 1928. From an interview he gave with Musical America in August of that year, he offered “This new piece, really a rhapsodic ballet, is written very freely and is the most modern music I have yet attempted.”
