Alan Sherrod

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Drawing from a career background in music, motion pictures, and theatre, Alan Sherrod has been writing about Knoxville's diverse art and music scene since 2007 — first as the classical/new music writer for the alternative weekly Metro Pulse, then later in the same capacity for the Knoxville Mercury. After the closure of Metro Pulse in 2014 by its parent company, Sherrod created ARTS KNOXVILLE to provide a home for Knoxville arts journalism. In August, 2017, he expanded ARTS KNOXVILLE into the site it is today — a site dedicated to continuing the arts journalism legacy of those alternative weeklies. In addition to covering Knoxville's arts scene, he has also contributed music content to the Nashville Scene and other arts and entertainment publications around the U.S, including the website, Classical Journal. Mr. Sherrod was a recipient of a 2010 Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts — the Arts Journalism Institute in Classical Music and Opera — under the auspices of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. In 2019, Sherrod was inducted into the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame.

Art/Design

2015 Arts and Culture Alliance Juried Exhibition Shows Its Digital Influence

One of the cruelest of ironies in arts and technology is that the company that developed the core technology for digital photography ended up being the biggest victim of its success. Steven Sasson of Eastman Kodak invented the first prototype…

Music

Knoxville Opera’s ‘Carmen’ This Weekend: Bass Ryan Kuster and his Escamillo

Do toreadors and opera singers have anything in common? Perhaps. Both require training to expand on one’s natural gift; both must perform, often at risk, before a demanding audience; and both thrive on the adulation of the crowds and develop…

Music

Depth Becomes Her in Knoxville Opera’s ‘Carmen’

Knoxville Opera’s production of Bizet’s Carmen Conductor and musical director: Brian Salesky; Stage director: Chuck Hudson With Audrey Babcock as Carmen, Brian Cheney as Don José, Ryan Kuster as Escamillo, and Zulimar López-Hernández as Micaëla. Friday, February 13, 8 p.m.…

Art/Design

Two New Exhibitions Open at the Knoxville Museum of Art

Two new exhibitions open at the Knoxville Museum of Art on Friday, January 30, and both run through April 19. Contemporary Focus is an annual exhibition series that features regional artists whose appeal reaches far beyond the region. This year’s exhibition consists of…

Music

Review: Fabulous Vocal Performances in Marble City Opera’s ‘La Femme Bohème’

Marble City Opera’s latest production, La Femme Bohème, opened this past weekend at the Old City’s NV Nightclub in its continuing survey of refreshing out-of-the-ordinary venues — and with its continuing penchant for fabulous, knock-your-socks-off vocal performances. [It continues on Saturday this…

Music

Review: Guest Conductor Lawrence Loh and the KSO Sculpt A Dynamic Masterpiece

There was a time—only a few years ago—that the booking and announcement of a guest conductor for a Knoxville Symphony Orchestra concert engendered in me a gnawing feeling of dread and trepidation. Thankfully, those days seem to be over as…

Music

Pianist Ching-Yun Hu Opens 2015 YPS on Sunday

For their 35th season, the Evelyn Miller Young Pianist Series has finally returned to Knoxville. The Knoxville pianist and teacher, Evelyn Miller, began the series in 1980 as a way to showcase under-35 year old pianists who are at the…

Music

Marble City Opera’s ‘La Femme Bohème’ Opens This Saturday

Since its birth in May of 2013, Marble City Opera has been at the cutting edge of Knoxville’s music performance scene. Their inaugural performance, The Face on the Barroom Floor, set the tone for what we have come to expect from an innovative…

Music

KSO This Week: Tchaikovsky Symphony #4, Shostakovich, Berlioz

Knoxville Symphony Orchestra Masterworks Lawrence Loh, guest conductor Berlioz: Roman Carnival Overture, Opus 9 Shostakovich: Concerto No. 1 for Cello and Orchestra in E-flat Major (Julie Albers, cello) Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Opus 36 Thursday and Friday, January 22-23,…

Music

Review: KSO Concertmaster Series Shows Off Its New Friends

This week’s installment of the KSO’s Concertmaster Series of chamber music—Gabriel Lefkowitz and Friends—showed off just how important friends are, both onstage and in the audience. One of the works programmed offered the largest ensemble yet for the series—the “Winter” concerto…