Given the current revelations of the past week, I couldn’t help feeling that Maestro Aram Demirjian and the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra may have wished they had titled the week’s Masterworks concerts something other than “Russian Passion.” On the other hand,…
Self-Centered: Tubist/Composer Jim Self in Weeklong Residency with UT Music
I can virtually guarantee that everyone reading this has heard the work of tubist Jim Self, even if they didn’t realize it. Since 1974, Self has been a freelance musician in Hollywood, performing in orchestras for over 1500 motion pictures and…
Sergei Rachmaninoff, We Hardly Knew Ye
BY ALAN SHERROD This week—specifically Saturday, February 17—marks a rather ironic claim to fame for Knoxville. In Knoxville on that date in 1943, 75 years ago, the Russian composer and pianist, Sergei Rachmaninoff, gave the last public performance of…
Review: KSO Brings Ecstasy and Enlightenment with Bach and Shostakovich
After Sunday afternoon’s Knoxville Symphony Orchestra Chamber Classics concert, several things should now be readily apparent to the KSO’s audience.
Review: Clarence Brown Theatre’s ‘Alabama Story’
There is considerable humor, quaintness, and charm in Kenneth Jones’ play, ‘Alabama Story’, and in its current production, directed by Kate Buckley, at the Clarence Brown Theatre, in the play’s southeastern U.S. premiere.
KMA Announces Major Acquisition of Beauford Delaney Works
For artists and composers, recognition—or even health and comfort—often comes far too late for the individual. Such is the case with painter Beauford Delaney, born in Knoxville in 1901, dying in an insane asylum in Paris in 1979. However, in…
Strad and Rad: KSO Brings Two Stradivarius Violins To Knoxville for Bach, Shostakovich, and Schnittke
Knoxville Symphony Chamber Orchestra’s Chamber Classics Conductor: Aram Demirjian Schnittke: Moz-Art à la Haydn Golijov: Last Round (Muertes Del Angel) Bach: Concerto For 2 Violins (Soloists William Shaub and Edward Pulgar) Jessie Montgomery: Starburst Shostakovich: Chamber Symphony Sunday, February 4,…
Preview: ‘Alabama Story’ at CBT – A Play About Books, Censorship, and the American Condition
It would probably have been easy to thumb past the obituary of Emily Wheelock Reed in the New York Times in May 2000, its headline not really shouting out its significance: “Emily W. Reed, 89, Librarian in ’59 Alabama Racial…
Big Ears Festival 2018 Announces Additions and Daily Lineups
As if one needed more reasons to grab a pass and attend the 2018 Big Ears Festival, festival programmers have just announced some additional performers and performances for the festival that make it virtually impossible to miss. And, the day-by-day…
Review: ‘Mary’s Wedding’ – A Dream of Romance and War
A dream forms the structure of Stephen Massicotte’s play, Mary’s Wedding, which opened last weekend at Flying Anvil Theatre—and it is very much the poet’s dream. However, Massicotte has not penned a purely romantic story, but has also made a…
