Although Isaac Newton probably wasn’t thinking about performers and performances when he developed his First Law of Motion, that Law of Inertia has certainly demonstrated its truth in the music world over the last year—a body in motion tends to stay in motion; a body at rest tends to stay at rest. Perhaps the biggest nagging question has been “…will audiences actively return to the concert hall when the pandemic precautions are history?”
This was most assuredly on the mind of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, an organization that boldly began to offer live attendance at concerts in February under severe limitations of capacity and social-distancing for both performers and audiences. Although all of the subsequent KSO concerts have also been streamed for those unwilling or unable to attend live, there has been the recognition that virtual concerts—inherently less than satisfying—should be only a stop-gap measure.
This past week, after a four month shortened season, the KSO offered its season-ending concert, one that would have traditionally been presented with a mixture of graduation-like nostalgia and an ebullient sense of optimism for the next season. In a concert of two works—Michael Torke’s violin concerto, Sky, with violinist Tessa Lark, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2—that sense of optimism for the future was joyously intact. Joyous, too, was the orchestra’s brilliant performance in defiance of the current limitations.
A finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Music, Torke’s Sky was every bit a “body in motion” thanks to Lark’s energetically detailed performance saturated with bluegrass abstractions and the orchestra’s textural storytelling under KSO conductor Aram Demirjian. The work flies by, intriguing moment heaped onto smile-inducing passage, with the orchestra apparently reveling in the fun.
Torke wrote the piece specifically for Lark and her ability to tie the worlds of bluegrass textures and tonalities, with other rhythms and musical idioms. A specific sense of Aaron Copland-like exclamations emerge from the conversational orchestral line in the first movement, one that softens to a lyrical Americana feel in the second movement. Gershwin-esque bounce and jazz explosions mark the final movement that alternately buzzes with lightness, then swims in thick, colorful pools of bluegrass texture in the violin.
Maestro Demirjian chose a contrasting work to complete the evening, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2. Choosing to conduct sans score, Demirjian took the opportunity to immerse himself in the stylistic conversation that Beethoven created, its back and forth taking the form of the joyously intricate banter between woodwinds as they inject their response to the string’s thematic material. With optimism on display, the orchestra turned in a deliciously focused and colorful performance, despite the reduced orchestra size and increased distancing of the orchestra’s individuals.
While no one, neither performer nor audience, is feeling much nostalgia for the 2020-21 end of season, there was an obvious emotion of optimism and artistic perseverance that flowed over the footlights in this week’s concert. Pain has been felt, sacrifices have been made by many in the KSO world, but the 2021-22 season now beckons. It’s time for bodies to get back in motion.
